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SLAVERY IN THE STATE OF
NORTH CAROLINA

(

jSlorfh Carolina Sfate Library
Raleigh

Series XVII No. 7-8

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY STUDIES

IN

Historical and Political Science

HERBERT B. ADAMS, Editor

History is past Politics and Politics are present History. — Freeman

SLAVERY IN THE STATE OF

NORTH CAROLINA

BY

JOHN SPENCER BASSETT, Ph.D. (J. H. U.)

Professor of History and Political Science, Trinity College (North Carolina).

THE JOHNS HOPKINS PRESS, BA LTIMORE

Published Monthly

JULY-AUGUST, 1899

i

3313 si

COPYRIGHT 1899 BY N. MURRAY.

PREFATORY NOTE.

The author desires to express here his sense of obligation
to the many friends who have so kindly made suggestions
and furnished him with facts bearing on this monograph.
Their cheerful compliance with his requests has made the
work easier than it might have been. Among those to
whom he is especially indebted are, Dr. B. F. Arrington,
Dr. Thomas Hill, and Maj. D. W. Hurt, of Goldsboro, N.
C; Dr. K. P. Battle, of the University of North Carolina;
Dr. J. D. Huffham, of Henderson, N. C. ; Rev. J. B. Rich-
ardson, of High Point, N. C, and Col. John D. Whitford, of
Nevvbern, N. C. To each of these gentlemen he returns
his sincere thanks.

Durham, N. C, July 7, 1899.

CONTENTS,

Introduction: General Characteristics 7

I. Legal Status of the Slave; The Slave in Court, Runaways,
The Slave's Right to Hunt, The Slave's Right to
Travel and Trade, The Slave's Right to Life 10

II. Free Negroes and Emancipation; Emancipation, Free

Negroes 29

III. Religious Life 47

IV. Industrial and Social Life; Population, Distribution, The

Regulation of the Slave's Life yy

V. The Triumph of the Pro-Slavery Sentiment; Slave Con-
spiracies, The Growth of the Pro-Slavery Sentiment . . 94

Slavery in the State of North Carolina.

INTRODUCTION : GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS.

The story of slavery in the State of North Carolina may
be considered in two parts, the dividing point of which is the
year 1831. Before this year the general conditions of the
slave were more humane than after it. Public feeling on
the question was then unimpassioned. Some people opposed
it; some favored it. It seems to have been discussed in a
sane way, as a matter of public policy and without any
extraordinary excitement or recrimination. After 1831,
or about that year — for no fine and distinct dividing
point can properly be made — the conditions of slavery
became more severe. One law after another was passed
which bore hardly on the slave, until at last he was
bound hand, foot, and brain in the power of his master.
Moreover, public feeling became inflamed. Slavery could
no longer be discussed as a public policy, and there arose
with most people in the State a fervent intolerance of all
views advanced against the system.

The causes of this remarkable development have often
been enumerated. Later on in this work I propose to
explain the matter with some degree of fulness in a chapter
on the development of the pro-slavery sentiment. Here
it cannot be necessary to do more than point out the gen-
eral facts of the process.

In this sense the chief cause of this change was the inven-
tion of the cotton gin and the consequent opening up of the
cotton industry, not only in many parts of North Carolina,

7

8 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [324

but in the entire Gulf region. This gave a strong impetus
to the settling of large plantations which hitherto had been
limited for the most part to the rice producing regions. A
wide extension of slavery could never have been made on
the basis of the small farm, where there was necessarily
much white labor. In North Carolina, and elsewhere, no
doubt, it was noticeable that slavery, even in the days of the
greatest excitement over the slave question, was of a milder
type in the western counties. Here the farms were small.
Slave-owners had but few slaves. With these they mingled
freely. They worked with them in the fields, ploughing side
by side. The slave cabins were in the same yard with the
master's humble home. Slave children and, indeed, slave
families were directly under the eye of the master, and better
still, of the mistress. On such farms from five to twenty
slaves was a usual quota, although their number often went
to fifty and even higher. Could this type of bondage have
predominated in the South, it is likely that slavery would
sooner or later have softened itself, as in the disintegrating
Roman Empire, into some less austere forms of servile labor,
until at last it came by successive stages to the light of free-
dom. That it did not happen was due to the aristocracy of
cotton.

The triumph of the cotton aristocracy did not come in a
day. In 1800 North Carolina was, except certain sections
in the far East, in the grasp of the small farm system. There
were then many people in the State who opposed slavery.
Some of them were statesmen who, like Jefferson and Wash-
ington, looked to the day of freedom. They were strong
enough to offset and keep down a certain thorough-going
tendency to deal with slaves in a summary manner, which
from the first was not wanting with some legislators. But
as the large estate prevailed, the pro-slavery influence
became stronger. The arguments on this side were natur-
ally aggressive ; and those on the other side were conserva-
tive. The former caught the support of the younger men
in politics. As time passed the older party was weakened

325] Introduction. 9

by the death of its leaders, and the new party gained
strength. It was in 183 1 that the latter was able definitely
to triumph over the former.

There are two well-known facts that secured this decisive
victory; that is to say, the Nat Turner rebellion and the
beginning of the more vigorous anti-slavery agitation in the
North. The former won the victory; the latter undoubt-
edly made it forever sure.

Looking behind these two facts, however, it is worth
while to ask how much the newer development of slavery,
due to cotton cultivation, had to do with these two occur-
rences. To attempt to answer this question here would be to
anticipate the task of the historian of slavery in general. I
shall only venture to suggest that it may be probable that
the growing harshness of slavery, either in Virginia or in
the far South, led Nat Turner to make his futile attempt
at freedom. With more confidence I might assert that the
certain extension of slavery in the Gulf States, as well as
in the older slave States, nerved the anti-slavery associates
of Garrison to a fiercer battle. They saw, they must have
seen, that the enemy against whom they contended was
every day growing stronger. This aroused their efforts
in the first instance, and made the fight more bitter through-
out its course. This increased strength of slavery was due
to cotton. But for this the famous contest in the Virginia
Legislature of 183 1 might have had another end. Mr.
D. R. Goodloe1 is authority for the view that such a triumph
of anti-slavery in Virginia would have carried North Caro-
lina against slavery. Such a victory in either State, or in
both, would have broken the sectional balance in the United
States Senate and secession would have been blighted ere it
had sprouted.

1 See a manuscript sketch by Mr. Goodloe himself, which is pre-
served among the papers of the Trinity College Historical Society.

CHAPTER I.

THE LEGAL STATUS OF THE SLAVE.

The spirit of the slavery legislation in the State of North
Carolina conforms to the development that has been indi-
cated. Before, and immediately after, 1800 many of the
laws passed indicated a milder spirit. After that they
became more austere till they finally partook of the spirit of
harshness to which allusion has been made. But this devel-
opment did not come because of deliberate cruelty on the
part of the slave-owners. There are throughout the period
of greatest restriction enough humane laws and more than
enough humane custom to show the contrary. It came as
a logical consequence of the conviction that the future
development of Southern society as well as the safety of the
Southern people demanded that slavery should be perpet-
uated. Before this iron necessity every impulse to human-
ity, every suggestion for a better elevated negro race, was
made to fall. Now and again some sharp-eyed pro-slavery
advocate would discover some way by which it was thought
that the slave could lift himself out of slavery, and the way
would be as promptly closed up. At one time it was teaching-
slaves to read, again it was allowing negroes to preach to
their race, again it was allowing free negroes to attend
muster, and sometimes it was allowing a slave to hire his
own time. In every case the Legislature was prompt with
its veto. And yet it is certain that the feeling of the com-
munity was not so harsh as these laws indicate. Severe
laws were often not obeyed. Besides some other provi-
sions of the law, the single case of the State vs. Will is suffi-
cient evidence of this humaner feeling. This case is remark-
able because it settled, in 1834, just at the time when the
10

327] The Legal Status of the Slave. 11

pro-slavery sentiment was in the flush of victory over the
conservatives, the question that a slave had a right to defend
himself against the apparently murderous attack of his
master or overseer. Such a decision granted the slave all
the rights of a moral conscience and gave the lie direct to
the notion that the slave is not a person, the notion which
underlay the Dred Scott decision.

These two opposite tendencies of greater austerity and of
greater sympathy within the bounds of slavery existed con-
jointly throughout the period we have under consideration.
In considering the legal status of slavery as well as the gen-
eral social conditions of slaves, the reader will often remark
the outcropping of one or both of them.

The Slave in Court. — During the period of statehood the
slave law of 1741 continued the basis of the law of slavery,
although it was frequently modified. By this law two or
more justices of the peace and four freeholders were con-
stituted a court to hold the trial of a slave.1 But in 1793
(chap. 5) the slave received the additional security of being
tried for offenses involving life, limb, or member before a
jury of twelve slaveholders in open County Court, but "in
a summary way." If, however, the County Court were not
to meet in regular order in fifteen days after the arrest of the
slave, the sheriff was to call a special court of three justices
of the peace and twelve disinterested slaveholding jurymen,
as before provided, and these were to have the powers
of the County Court for the case at issue. The owner was
to have notice and might defend his slave, and if the case
went against the slave he paid the costs ; but if the master
were unknown the slave was allowed counsel. What was
meant by the expression "in a summary way" was defined
in an explanatory act a year later (Laws of 1794, chap.
11). It was at first intended doubtless that the court should
not be bound by the ordinary rules of pleading. Now it
was declared with more explicitness that the jury should

1 See the author's " Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North
Carolina," pp. 28-29.

12 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [328

return a verdict on the evidence submitted by the Court, and
that the Court should give judgment "agreeable to the ver-
dict of the jury and the laws of the country." By this it
seems that the penalties inflicted on white men for the crimes
in question were extended to slaves convicted of the same
crimes.

Further guarantees of security were given in 1816 (chap.
14) when it was provided that slaves charged with capital
offenses should be tried in the Superior Courts ; and that
the trial was to be conducted as the trial of a freeman,
unless the charge were conspiracy. It was expressly stated
that there must be a presentment by the grand jury; that the
owner must be notified ; that the hearing might be removed to
another county on affidavit of owner ; that an offense clergy-
able for freemen was to be clergyable for slaves ; and that
the slave with the advice of his master might challenge the
jury for cause. Otherwise the trial was to follow the law of
1777 (chap. 2) and that of 1779 (chap. 6). If the charge
were conspiracy the trial was to be by special commission of
Oyer and Terminer issued by the Governor to a Superior
Court on the petition of five freeholders in the county in
which the conspiracy was alleged to have occurred. Conspir-
acy was an exceptional affair in reference to the slave; but
for ordinary cases the status of the slaves improved steadily.
In 1818 a slave on trial for his life was given the full right of
a freeman to challenge jurors.1 Thus in the matter of his life
the standing of the slave approached nearly to that of the
freeman.

In 1820 a further distinction between the trial of a free-
man and a slave was obviated when it was provided that
v/hen a slave was convicted of a capital offense the costs
should be paid by the county.2

Minor offenses were tried differently. By the law of 1741
they were tried in the same way as capital offenses. But in
1783 (chap. 14) it was enacted that a justice of the peace

Revision of 1821, chap. 972. 2 Ibid., chap. 1073.

329] The Legal Status of the Slave. 13

before whom the case of a slave was brought should try the
case at once, if it were less than a capital crime and if, in his
judgment, the penalty ought not to be heavier than forty
lashes. Such trial was to be "in a summary way." Cases
between these minor cases and capital cases gradually
came to be tried in the County Courts, as capital cases were
to be tried in the Superior Court. Here also the trial was to
be conducted "under the same rules, regulations and restric-
cions as the trials of freemen ;" and the slave was entitled to
a jury of slaveholders.1

The law as just stated remained in force till the war, with
the difference that the cases hitherto left to the County
Courts went now to one or more justices of the peace, if
they chose to sit on the case, and the penalty was to be whip-
ping not to exceed thirty-nine lashes on the bare back.
Appeal was, by law of 1842 (chap. 3), to be allowed to the
County or the Superior Court. Such offenses were what
were called "inferior offenses" and crimes which if done
by free persons would be cognizable in the County Court.
Some of the "inferior offenses" ought to be mentioned.
Among them were insolence to a free white person ; slan-
dering a free white person, or trespassing on the property
of such a person ; intermarrying or cohabiting with a free
negro; having sexual intercourse or indulging in grossly
indecent familiarity with a white female ; trying to teach a
slave to read or to write — the use of figures excepted;
exhorting or preaching or holding any other public religious
service where slaves of different families were assembled ;
playing cards, dice or nine-pins, or gambling for money,
liquor or other property; raising cattle, hogs, horses, etc.;
producing a forged pass or certificate of freedom, and some
other offenses. Felonies and other offenses of slaves not
given for trial to a justice of the peace were to be tried before
the Superior Court in the manner of the trials of freemen
and before juries of slave-owners.2 Conspiracy to rebel was

1 Revised Statutes, 1837, P- 582. 2 Revised Code, pp. 510-11.

14 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [330

also construed a felony and punishment was to be death or
transportation.

The payment of the owners for slaves executed by law
was a hard matter to settle. At the beginning of statehood
the State paid the owner for the slave, and in 17791 the
Assembly fixed the maximum value of such a slave at £ 700,
continental money, then much depreciated. In 1786 (chap.
17) the Assembly repealed all acts allowing payment for
executed slaves, since, as it declared, "many persons by cruel
treatment of their slaves cause them to commit crimes for
which many of the said slaves are executed." Masters now
for financial reasons protected their slaves from prosecution,
and there was a demand for a return to the old system.
Formerly the burden had been borne by the whole State,
and this was considered unfair to the counties which had
few slaves. The final solution lay in local action. In 1796
(chap. 27) seven eastern counties were authorized to lay a
tax to pay for slaves executed within their respective bor-
ders, the owner to receive two-thirds of the value of the
slave, as estimated by the jury that pronounced him guilty.
This amount, however, was not to be paid unless the jury
was convinced that the owner had properly fed and clothed
the delinquent slave. A tax for such a purpose was to be
levied on the black polls of the county. This law seems to
have worked well for within a few years several other coun-
ties had been granted the same privileges.

Runaways. — In the above section the development was in
favor of a more humane treatment of a slave. There had
been an honest desire to secure justice to the slave, and
the graver offenses were put on the same basis as in the
graver cases of freemen. It could be done because in no
way was the perpetuity of slavery concerned. This was not
true in regard to runaways. Such slaves threatened the very
life of slavery. The law of colonial days on this subject had
been stringent; and that was slightly modified after the

1Laws of 1779, 3d session, chap. 12.

331] The Legal Status of the Slave. 15

Revolution. Such enactments as were made had to do*
chiefly with persons who aided runaways. Thus in 1779
(1st session, chap. 11) it was made a capital felony to steal
or seduce away a slave and this law remained in force till
the war.1 This probably referred to persons who stole
slaves as property; but in the same act it was further pro-
vided that whoever aided a runaway to escape should on
conviction pay £ 100 to the owner of the fugitive and, in
addition, whatever damages might be incurred. In 1793
(chap. 5) it was made a capital felony for a ship captain to
take, or knowingly allow others to take, a slave out of the
State without the written consent of the slave's master.

In the days of exasperation against the anti-slavery party
in the North more stringent rules were made. From 1825
till 1833 there were three laws passed, the substance of
which was to make the stealing of a slave with the purpose
of sending him out of the State, or the aiding of one to
escape out of the State, a felony punishable by death.2 This
law remained in effect till i860.3 This was no doubt aimed
at Northern men bent on working the Underground Rail-
way. For ordinary cases of persuading slaves to run away
or for harboring runaways one should on conviction pay the
owner of the slave a fine of $100 and damages and be liable
to fine of $100 more, and might furthermore be indicted and
fined another $100 and imprisoned not more than six
months.4 The latter amendments were passed in 182 1 and
1830.

The Slave's Right to Hunt. — Here, too, the question of the
perpetuity of slavery was involved. For slaves to hunt with
a gun jeopardized the masters' lives. Throughout the period
of statehood there was no disposition to relax the strict pro-
hibition of this practice. Anyone who found a slave so
hunting might take the gun for his own use and carry the

1 Revised Statutes, chap. 34, sec. 10, and Revised Code, chap. 34,
sec. 10. 2 Revised Statutes, chap. 34, sec. 11.

3 Revised Code, chap. 34, sec. 11.

*Revised Statutes, chap. 34, sec. 73, and Revised Code, chap. 34,
sec. 81.

16 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [332

slave to the nearest constable who should at once give the
slave twenty lashes on his bare back and the owner should
pay the same reward as was paid for taking up a runaway.1

The Slave's Right to Travel and Trade. — The patrol, which
had been established in 1753,2 became steadily a more per-
manent institution as the people became more convinced of
the necessity of keeping slavery unassailed. In 1779 (3d
session, chap. 8) it was required to make a general search
once a month and to report to the County Court. Slaves
off their masters' plantations on Sunday were to be arrested,
unless they had passes or were in the company of a white
man. In 1794 (chap. 4) it was provided that the patrol
should be appointed by the County Court whenever it
should think necessary. No more than six men should be
appointed to the district of each militia captain. The patrol
was to be in office one year, was to have stipulated fees and
one-half of the money from fines under this act of 1794, and
was to be exempt from road and jury duty. Two patrolmen
going together were to cover a district at least once a fort-
night. They might whip — not to exceed fifteen lashes —
slaves found off their master's land without permission.

In 1802 there was an alarm over a reported slave insur-
rection in Bertie and adjoining counties. This induced the
Assembly to provide a still more efficient patrol.3 The
County Court was now authorized to appoint patrolers in
such numbers and under such rules as it might think neces-
sary, the patrolers retaining the powers and privileges con-
ferred by the act of 1794. To support the patrol the County
Court was given the authority to levy a special tax of one
shilling on each black poll. In the same year (1802, chap.
68) the militia of Gates, Pasquotank, and Camden Counties
were constituted a patrol. The captains were directed to
divide their companies into squads of four or five men who

1 Revised Statutes, chap, ill, sec. 23, and Revised Code, chap. 107,
sec. 26.
'See author's "Slavery and Servitude," p. 38.
8 Laws of 1802, chap. 15.

North Carolina State Library
Raleigh

333] The Legal Status of the Slave. 17

were to search their respective neighborhoods once in three
weeks and to whip slaves found at large.

No further change was made in the patrol till 1830 (chap.
16, sees. 1 and 14) when the County Court was given author-
ity to appoint, if it saw fit, a Patrol Committee of three per-
sons in each captain's district who might appoint as many
patrolers as they thought necessary, provided that this
should not prevent the County Court from appointing
patrols as they saw fit. The patrol was now given large
powers of arrest. The patrolers were enjoined to visit sus-
pected places, to disperse assemblages of slaves, to be dili-
gent in arresting runaways, to detect thefts, and to report
persons who traded with slaves. The patrol, or any two of
them, should "have such powers as may be necessary to a
proper discharge of the duties herein enjoined," ran the law.
If a negro who was being whipped was insolent to them he
might be further punished not to exceed thirty-nine lashes
in all. The Patrol Committee was given power to dis-
charge patrolers and to appoint others in the vacancies. To
refuse to serve on the patrol was punished by a fine of $2(3,
to go to the support of the patrol, and in 1835 (chap.
22) it was enacted that persons who refused or neglected to
perform the duties of this office should be fined $25. 1

There was more than one reason why masters did not
want their slaves to meet at slave-meetings about the neigh-
borhood. It afforded opportunity for concocting mischief;
and it demoralized the slaves by bringing them into contact
with the worst negroes of the community, by keeping them
up till late at night, and by giving them a desire for idle-
ness. Accordingly the laws were always against such slave-
meetings. In 1779 (2d session, chap. 10) it was enacted that
an ordinary keeper who entertained slaves against their
master's will should forfeit his license. In 1794 (chap. 4) it
was declared that no person should permit any negroes, bond

xSee Revised Statutes, chap. 86; also Tate vs. Neale, 1 Hawks,
418, and Revised Code, chap. 83.
2

18 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [334

or free, to meet on his property for drinking or dancing on
penalty of fine of £. 10.

The commonest crime of slaves in all ages is no doubt
theft. The negro has been called thievish by nature. Cer-
tainly in American slavery he showed a decided tendency
to petty thievishness, so that it was necessary to throw a
great deal of legal restraint around his petty business rela-
tions with others. Various laws were passed on this sub-
ject. A slave must not trade with any other person without
the written consent of his master, the article for which per-
mission to trade was given being expressly specified.1
Between 1826 and 1833 a series of laws enumerated the arti-
cles which slaves might not sell without the consent of their
masters. These were articles raised on the farm, tools, food
supplies, and articles prepared for sale, as staves, cloth, and
gold and silver bullion. Other persons were forbidden to
sell anything at all to slaves ; provided, however, that this
should not hold when slaves traded with the written permis-
sion of their masters between sunrise and sunset, Sunday
excepted ; but this proviso was not to apply to the sale of
spirituous liquors, arms, and ammunition, unless they were
for the master's own use.2 How rigidly this law was enforced
may be seen from the fact that in 1846 (chap. 42) it was
enacted that this section should not be construed to mean
that the master of a slave was not to give him these prohib-
ited articles to carry from one place to another.3 Further
indication of the rigidness of the law is seen in the statement
of what should be considered presumptive evidence in such
a case. It was enacted in 1826 (chap. 13, sec. 6) that if a
slave should be found in a place used for trade between nine
o'clock and daybreak, or at any time unless his master sent
him ; or, if a slave should stay in such a place, unless sent
thither by his master, for fifteen minutes with the door shut ;
or if he should come out of such a place with articles which

1 Laws of 1779, 1st session, chap. 11, and 1788, chap. 6.

2 Revised Statutes, chap. 34, sees. 75-78.

3 Revised Code, chap. 34, sees. 83-92.

335] The Legal Status of the Slave. 19

might have been purchased therein ; it should be presump-
tive evidence against him.1 Shipmasters, many of whom
were from the North, were forbidden to entertain negroes
or mulattoes, slaves or freemen, on their ships between sun-
set and sunrise or on Sunday, unless the said negroes had
permission from their masters or from a justice of the peace,
or unless they were employed on board.2 Negroes who
violated this law were presumed to be disposing of stolen
goods.

Of a somewhat similar nature was the custom of allowing
a slave to hire his own time. This was a practice by which
a slave paid his owner a certain sum of money for his own
time and then followed some line of work in which he was
proficient. The more industrious negroes who had trades,
as blacksmiths, carpenters and bricklayers, often did this.
From one hundred to one hundred and fifty dollars a year
was the amount usually paid by a slave for his own time.
Most slaves who hired their time did it with the intention
of buying their freedom, and many of them accomplished
their purpose. The practice gave the slave more liberty of
action and it was considered undesirable both because it
increased the number of free negroes and because it removed
the slave so hiring from the strict control of the whites.
Accordingly it was enacted as early as 1794 (chap. 4) that
no slave should hire his time on penalty of being hired out
for a year by the sheriff at the direction of the County Court,
the proceeds to go to the poor. There is good reason to
believe that this law was not generally executed, but it
remained on the statute book throughout the period of
slavery.3 Neither should a slave be allowed to go about
as a freeman, using his own discretion as to his employ-

1 Revised Statutes, chap. 34, sec. 78, and Revised Code, chap. 34,
sec. 88.

2 Revised Statutes, chap. 34, sec. 76, and Revised Code, chap. 34,
sec. 93.

3 Revised Statutes, chap, in, sec. 31, and Revised Code, chap. 107,
sec. 28.

20 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [336

ment or living in a house to himself and remote from other
slaves, as a freeman, even though his master should con-
sent.1

The Slave's Right to Life. — In 1774 it was enacted that a
person who willfully killed a slave should be imprisoned a
year for the first offense and suffer death for the second.2
In 1791 it was further enacted that if a person should be
convicted of maliciously killing a slave he should on the
first conviction be held guilty of murder and should "suffer
the same punishment as if he had killed a freeman." But
in 1801, in the case of the State vs. Boon, this law was
declared inoperative on the ground that the clause which
fixed the penalty was ambiguous. There were, it was said,
various ways of punishing freemen for murder. Since the
law left a shade of uncertainty in the penalty the prisoner
was entitled to the doubt and in this case was released.3
Two of the five judges of the court gave it as their opinion
that the malicious killing of a slave was murder at com-
mon law, and the three others did not contradict the
opinion. It is possible that it was under this influence that
such a principle began to be held by the courts, since Chief
Justice Taylor declared in 1820 that if a white person killed
a slave under such circumstances as constituted murder he
might have been punished for that offense.4 A difficulty
arose, however, if the case could be extenuated to man-
slaughter. No punishment was provided for that offense, and
the prisoner was uniformly discharged. The Assembly,
accordingly, in 1817 enacted that "the killing of a slave
shall partake of the same degree of guilt, when accompanied
with like circumstances, that homicide now does." This,
the Court held in 1820,5 was designed "to make the homi-
cide of a slave, extenuated by a legal provocation, man-

1 Revised Statutes, chap. 111, sec. 32, and Revised Code, chap. 107,
sec. 29.

2 See the author's " Slavery and Servitude," p. 43.
'North Carolina Reports, vol. 1, p. 103 (edition of 1896).
4Hawks's Law, p. 217. 5 Ibid., p. 210, State vs. Tackett.

337] The Legal Status of the Slave. 21

slaughter." After stating the common law in regard to
manslaughter the Court added that in the very nature of
slavery "many acts will extenuate the homicide of a slave,
which would not constitute a legal provocation if done by a
white person." The defining of these acts was not
attempted, but it was presumed that the Court and jury
would estimate them seriously in individual cases, with due
regard to the rights of slaves and white men — "to the just
claims of humanity, and to the supreme law, the safety of
the citizens."

In 1823 the Supreme Court in the case of the State vs.
Reed, declared directly that the killing of a slave might be
tried as murder at common law, Chief Justice Taylor and
Justice Henderson acquiescing and Justice Hall dissenting.
The grounds of the decision were the law of Nature and
Christianity. Justice Henderson made the very substantial
statement that the law of slavery gave the master the con-
trol of the services of the slave and that it would be not
too scrupulous in adjusting the means of enforcing these
services. "But the life of a slave being in no ways necessary
to be placed in the powers of the owner for the full enjoy-
ment of his services the law takes care of that ; and with me
it has no weight to show that, by the laws of ancient Rome
or modern Turkey, an absolute power is given to the mas-
ter over the life of his slave. I answer, these are not the
laws of our country, nor the mode from which they were
taken. It is abhorrent to the hearts of all those who have
felt the influence of the mild precepts of Christianity." The
argument of Justice Hall was on the basis that the slave
is a chattel. Now if a slave be killed the law provides that
the owner has an action for trespass against the slayer. But
if killing a slave be murder at common law the offender
would be answerable both civiliter and criminaliter. The
Legislature could not have intended to create such a condi-
tion. Besides, the Legislature in 1774 (chap. 31) passed a
law to punish the killing of a slave. If such an offense had

22 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [338

been cognizable at common law the Legislature need not
have made a statute on the subject.1

The effect of this decision was modified shortly after-
wards in the case of the State vs. Hoover, where it was
held that if a slave died from moderate chastisement of his
master every circumstance which in the general course of
slavery might have hurried the master to excess would be
tenderly regarded by the law. But where the punishment
was barbarously immoderate and accompanied by painful
privation of food, clothing, and rest, it is not correction in
foro domestico, indicates deliberate killing, and is therefore
murder.2

The next question to be taken up in this connection was
that of the culpability of a white man who cruelly beat a
slave. In 1823, in the case of the State vs. Hale,3 it was held
that a battery committed on a slave, no justifying circum-
stances being shown, was an indictable offense. But it was
explicitly stated that circumstances which would not justify
a battery on a free person might in the nature of slavery
justify an assault on a slave. "The offenses," said the
Chief Justice in a sentence which casts a clear light on one
phase of slavery in the South, "are usually committed by
men of dissolute habits, hanging loose upon society, who,
being repelled from association with well-disposed citizens,
take refuge in the company of colored persons and slaves
whom they deprave by their example, embolden by their
familiarity, and then beat, under the expectation that a slave
dare not resent a blow from a white man." This principle
did not apply, however, to the assault of a master on his
slave. This latter case was taken up in 1829 in the case of
the State vs. Mann,4 when it was decided that a master was
not to be indicted for battery on his slave, that he who has

1 North Carolina Reports (new edition), vol. 9, p. 454.

2 See 4 Devereaux and Battle, p. 365.

3 Ibid., p, 582. Here the defendant is called Hale. Later cases
cite this case as State vs. Hall.
* North Carolina Reports (new edition), 13, p. 263.

339] The Legal Status of the Slave. 23

a right to the services of a slave has a right to all the means
of controlling his conduct that belong to the owner, and
that this rule would apply to the hirer of a slave. The
decision was given by Justice Ruffin. Although, as he
affirmed, there was no question about a master's right to
inflict any kind of corporal punishment short of death on
his slave, he still stated the general grounds for such a
principle. There had been no prosecutions of masters for
such an offense. Against this general opinion of the com-
munity the Court ought not to hold. It was erroneously
said that the relation of master and slave was like that of
parent and child, and it was held that a parent could not
commit a cruel battery on his own son. The object of the
training of a son was the life of a freeman, and the means to
be used was moral and intellectual instruction. With
slavery it was otherwise. "The end," ran the decision, "is
the profit of the master, his security and the public safety;
the subject, one doomed in his own person and his posterity,
to live without knowledge and without the capacity to
make anything his own, and to toil that another may reap
the fruits. What moral considerations shall be addressed
to such a being to convince him what it is impossible but
that the most stupid must feel and know can never be true —
that he is thus to labor upon a principle of natural duty, or
for the sake of his own personal happiness. Such services
can only be expected from one who has no will of his own,
who surrenders his will in implicit obedience to that of
another. Such obedience is the consequence only of uncon-
trolled authority over the body. There is nothing else
which can operate to produce the effect. The power of the
master must be absolute to render the submission of the
slave perfect. I most freely confess my sense of the harsh-
ness of this proposition. I feel it as deeply as any man
can ; and as a principle of moral right every person in his
retirement must repudiate it. But in the actual conditions
of things it must be so. There is no remedy. This disci-
pline belongs to the state of slavery. They [the discipline

24 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [340

and slavery] cannot be disunited without abrogating at
once the rights of the master and absolving the slave from
his subjection. It constitutes the curse of slavery to both
the bond and free portion of our population. * * *
The slave, to remain a slave, must be made sensible that
there is no appeal from his master; that his power is in no
instance usurped ; but is conferred by the laws of man at
least, if not by the laws of God." The Courts could not
fix the punishment due to the violations of duty by the
slave. "No man can anticipate the many and aggravated
provocations of the master to which the slave would be con-
stantly stimulated by his own passions or the instigations
of others to give, or the consequent wrath of the master
prompting him to bloody vengeance upon the turbulent
traitor — a vengeance generally practiced with impunity
because of its privacy." I do not think that One can find
anywhere in the annals of modern justice a decision more
brutally logical, and more void of that genial spirit of pro-
gressive amelioration which should run through a legal
development. Justice Rufhn announced his own horror
of the decision he was giving and consoled himself with
the thought that the softening feeling of the masters in
general for the slaves was increasing and with the decreas-
ing numbers of the slaves, would eventually enable the
relations of slavery to be more humane — a result more
likely to come in this way "than from any rash expositions
of abstract truths by a judiciary tainted with a false and
fanatical philanthropy." Was it not the duty of the Court
to give such a decision that would help on the humaniz-
ing process by giving the Courts the right to restrain exces-
sive cruelty of masters towards slaves rather than by crys-
tallizing into a judicial opinion the brutal theory of the
harshest days of slavery to scotch the wheels of the progress
that it was desired to see abroad?

It was fortunate for the slave, it was fortunate for the
State, that this spirit was not permanent in the Supreme

341] The Legal Status of the Slave. 25

Court decisions. In 1834 the case of the State vs. Will,1
established the distinctly milder principle that a slave who
was barbarously attacked by his master might defend him-
self with physical force. The facts of the case were these :
Will was a slave who became angry because another slave
was allowed to use a hoe which Will used and had helved
in his own time. In his rage he broke the helve and went to
his work. When the overseer knew of it he took his gun
and rode to the place at which Will was at work. He called
the slave to him, who approached humbly with his hat off.
Some words were exchanged when Will began to run. Then
the overseer fired, making a wound in the back of the
fugitive which might have proved fatal. The terrified slave
was pursued and caught by the overseer and two slaves,
but in the struggle of arrest he cut the overseer with a
pocket knife so that the overseer bled to death. All the cir-
cumstances showed that Will had acted in supposed self-
defense. His plea was manslaughter — one of his counsel
was B. F. Moore,2 then young and unknown, but after-
wards one of the leading lawyers of the State. At the out-
set Mr. Moore was confronted by Judge Ruffin's opinion in
the case of the State vs. Mann. These sentiments he dis-
tinctly challenged. "It is humbly submitted," said he, "that
they are not only abhorrent and startling to humanity, but
at variance with statute and decided cases." Judge Hender-
son's opinion in the State vs. Reed was quoted to show that
the master's power extends only to the services of his slave.
Point by point Judge Ruffin's opinion so far as it related
to the general relation of master and slave was combated.
One eloquent passage will indicate the nature of the attack.
Judge Ruffin had said that the slave must be made to
realize that in no one instance was the master's power
usurped. This, exclaimed Mr. Moore, repressed thought

1 See "The Trinity College Historical Society Papers," series II,
p. 12; also 1 Devereaux and Battle, p. 121.

2 Mr. G. W. Mordecai was also associated with the defense, but
Mr. Moore's argument won the case.

26 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [342

and "reduced into perfect tameness the instinct of self-
preservation," a result difficult to accomplish and lament-
able if accomplished. But if the relation of slavery required
"that the slave shall be disrobed of the essential features
that distinguish him from the brute, the relation must adapt
itself to the consequences and leave its subjects the
instinctive privileges of a brute. I am arguing no question
of abstract right, but am endeavoring to prove that the
natural incidents of slavery must be borne with because
they are inherent to the condition itself ; and that any attempt
to punish the slave for the exercise of a right which even
absolute power cannot destroy is inhuman and without the
slightest benefit to the security of the master or to that of
society at large. The doctrine may be advanced from the
bench, enacted by the Legislature, and enforced with all the
varied agony of torture and still the slave cannot believe
and will not believe that there is no instance in which the
master's power is usurped. Nature, stronger than all, will
discover many instances and vindicate her rights at any and
at every price. When such a stimulant as this urges the
forbidden deed punishment will be powerless to proclaim
or to warn by example. It can serve no purpose but to
gratify the revengeful feelings of one class of people and to
influence the hidden animosities of the other."

The opinion was written by Justice Gaston, who two
years earlier had said in a public address : "Disguise the
truth as we may, and throw the blame where we will, it is
slavery which, more than any other cause, keeps us back
in the career of improvement."1 Now he showed him-
self a humane judge : He said : "Unconditional submis-
sion is, in general, the duty of the slave ; unquestioned legal
power is, in general, the right of the master. Unquestion-
ably there are exceptions to this rule. It is certain that the
master has not the right to slay his slave, and I hold it to
be equally certain that the slave has the right to defend
himself against the unlawful attempt of his master to deprive

1 Address at Chapel Hill, June 20, 1832, p. 24.

343] The Legal Status of the Slave. 27

him of life. There may be other exceptions, but in a matter
so full of difficulties, where reason and humanity plead
with almost irresistible force on one side, and a necessary
policy, rigorous indeed, but inseparable from slavery, urges
on the other, I fear to err should I undertake to define
them." Neither would he define legal provocation, but he
did say that a slave's unlawful violence excited by his mas-
ter's inhumanity ought not to be construed as malice. "The
prisoner," said the Court, "is a human being, degraded by
slavery, but yet having organs, senses, dimensions, passions
like our own." No malice was shown in the evidence and
the killing was pronounced manslaughter. It was a notable
case and it fixed a humaner spirit in the law of slavery in
North Carolina until the end of that institution.

But one more case before the Supreme Court will be
mentioned, that of the State vs. Jarrot,1 in 1840. It was
declared, that the difference between homicide through
malice and homicide through passion was to hold as much
in the trial of a slave as in that of a white man ; but the same
matters which would be sufficient provocation for a free-
man would not be sufficient when a slave had killed a white
man. Some words of a slave might be so aggravating as
to arouse the temporary fury which negatives the charge
of malice, "and this rule holds without regard to personal
merit or demerit of the white man." The insolence of a
slave would justify a white man in giving him moderate
chastisement at the moment, but would not authorize an
excessive battery, or moderate correction after the insolence
was past. The rule that where two parties become angry
and fight on equal terms till one kills the other the crime
is manslaughter is not to apply to slaves, but to equals only,
it being the slave's business to avoid such a contest. But
if the battery endangers the slave's life it will reduce homi-
cide by him to manslaughter.2

'North Carolina Reports, 23, p. 75.

2 This decision also was written by Judge Gaston.

28 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [344

In regard to the slave's legal status a curious case has
come under my notice. The late Dr. John Manning, widely
known as Professor of Law at the State University, told
me that Judge Rumn, the senior, told him that a case was
once decided in the North Carolina Supreme Court in which
it was held that a white man could not be convicted of forni-
cation and adultery with a slave woman, because such a
woman had no standing in the courts. The case, said Judge
Rumn, was decided early in this century, but it was agreed
that in the interest of public morality it should not be pub-
lished.1

1 Inquiry of the Clerk of the Supreme Court fails to discover the
papers in reference to the case ; but since there is no other index to
the Supreme Court cases than the printed reports it is quite possible
that the papers are preserved, but so lost among a vast number of
documents thatonly a long and careful search would bring them to light.

CHAPTER II.

FREE NEGROES AND EMANCIPATION.

Emancipation. — During the colonial period emancipation
was forbidden except for meritorious conduct to be
adjudged by the County Court,1 and this law was confirmed
by the Assembly in 1777 (chap. 6) and further explained
in 1796 (chap. 5).2 At the beginning of the Revolution
"some evil-minded persons intending to disturb the pub-
lic peace" liberated their slaves and left them at large in the
community. The authorities in Perquimons and Pasquo-
tank counties took up the negroes and resold them into
slavery. The Legislature confirmed these sales and pro-
vided that other such slaves at large might be sold in the
same way ; provided, however, that this law did not extend
to such of these negroes as had enlisted in the patriot army.3

These slaves had been freed by the Quakers, who were at
that time very active in favor of emancipation. Their
liberated slaves were going about, said the Assembly, "to
the terror of the people of the State." The law which for-
bade their liberation was a failure, because it left the duty
of informing of its violation to freeholders only and made
their action optional. To remedy this condition the
Assembly in 1788 (chap. 20) gave the duty of informing
on such liberated slaves to any freeman, and thus secured
the co-operation of the landless whites who were usually
strangely willing to have a fling at the slaves and who, no

1 See the author's " Slavery and Servitude," pp. 64-66.

2 When the Superior Courts were created the judging of meritorious
conduct was left to them. Revisal of 1821, chap. 971.

3 Laws of 1779, 2d session, chap. 12.

29

30 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [346

doubt, were anxious to get the reward offered for such infor-
mation.

After the San Domingo revolt in 1791 much concern was
felt in the Southern States lest the success of the slaves there
should inspire attempts at insurrection in the United States.
Several new features of the slave law were added, one of
which provided that no slave should be liberated unless he
could give bond in the sum of £200 that he would remain
quiet and orderly.1

In 1830 (chap. 9) it was made more difficult to emanci-
pate. Now, the petitioner must notify his intention at the
court house and in the State Gazette six weeks before the
hearing of the petition ; he must give bond with two sureties
for $1000 that the said slave should conduct himself well
as long as he or she remained in the State, that the slave
would leave the State within ninety days after liberation,
and the said liberation should invalidate the rights of no
creditor. Executors of wills by which slaves were directed
to be liberated must secure consent of the courts and take
steps to send the negroes out of the State and guard against
the loss of creditors. A slave more than fifty years old
might be liberated for meritorious conduct to be approved
by the Court without subsequently leaving the State, pro-
vided that the master swore that the emancipation was not
for money and that he gave bond that the negro would
conduct himself well and not become a charge on the
county. No slave was to be liberated except by this law.2
This law remained in force till the war.3 Within the strict
conditions herein embraced, ruled the Supreme Court in
1841, it was the policy to facilitate emancipation.4 Besides
this method, slaves were occasionally freed by special Act
of the Assembly.

1 Laws of 1795, chap. 16.
1 Revised Statutes, chap, in, sees. 57-64.
3 Revised Code, chap. 107, sees. 45-53.

4Cameron vs. Commissioners of Raleigh (the Rex Will Case),
1 Iredell's Eq., p. 436.

347] Free Negroes and Emancipation. 31

Among the various cases reported from the Supreme
Court in regard to emancipation there are several from
which the point is obtained that the freedom of slaves could
be acquired through prescription. For instance, it was held
that when a woman who had once been a slave, but who for
thirty years or more, had been treated as a free person, and
her daughter with her, then a granddaughter must be free ;
for it would be proper to infer that so long an enjoyment
of freedom must have followed legal emancipation. It was
not attempted to fix the time necessary to constitute such
liberation by prescription ; but in the cases cited thirty and
forty years are the periods mentioned.1

In Sampson vs. Burgwin2 a decided tenderness for the
slave is observed in the Court. Here suit was brought to
invalidate the emancipation of a slave, because, being but two
years old when liberated and being freed along with her
mother, she could not have performed meritorious ser-
vices. The Court held that the act of liberation was that
of "a court of conclusive jurisdiction, and could not be
impeached by evidence that she had not and could not per-
form such services." It also decided that a petition of an
owner to free slaves need not be in writing, and that "in
an action by a negro to try his right to freedom if evidence
of his being reputed to be a freeman is offered it is admis-
sible to show in reply acts of ownership inconsistent with
reputation." The opinion was by Ruffm, Chief Justice.

Granting permission to liberate was not liberation, as was
held in the case of Bryan vs. Wadsworth.3 Here Elizabeth
Bryan, of Craven County, had in 1808 received permis-
sion from the County Court to liberate her slave Abram
for meritorious services and gave the bond required for
the same ; but further she did not go. She kept Abram
as a slave till 1820, when she sold him. He then sued for

1Brookfield vs. Stuart, 6 Jones, p. 156; Cully vs. Jones, 9 Iredell,
p. 168; Strange vs. Burnham, 12 Iredell, p. 41.
2 3 Devereaux and Battle's Law, p. 28.
3 1 Devereaux and Battle's Law, p. 384.

32 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [348

his freedom. He lost the case. It was held that only the
master could emancipate and that the Court only gave per-
mission to emancipate.

The harshness of the law led to various subterfuges in
regard to emancipation. It was attempted to hold slaves
in nominal servitude, but in real freedom. This was opposed
for the general reason that it increased the free negro class
and whenever a case involving such a trick came before the
Supreme Court it was severely handled. A case in point
was that of the Quakers, which arose as follows : In 1817
William Dickinson conveyed a slave to the trustees of the
Quaker society of Contentnea, to be held in a kind of
guardianship, to be kept at work but to receive the profits
of his labor, and ultimately to be free when his freedom
could be effected by the laws of the State. In 1827 the
matter was before the Supreme Court. It was in evidence
that nothing was said about sending the slave out of the
State when he should be freed. On the contrary it seemed
to be the purpose of the parties to keep him in the State
till free, and then to let him go where he would. The
opinion was by Taylor, Chief Justice. He declared that the
practice of the Quakers was emancipation in everything but
name. By statute a religious society could hold property
for its use only, and in a conveyance to it for a purpose
forbidden by the policy of the laws nothing was passed.
That the Quakers did not hold this slave, or other slaves, for
their own use was shown by the fact that slaveholding was
against their well-known principles. Justice Hall dissented.
He thought a religious society might hold personal
property unlimitedly and seems not to have approved of the
law which fixed such stringent measures against emanci-
pation.1 Regardless of this decision, as will be seen later on,
the Quakers, as a society, continued to hold slaves for pur-
poses of emancipation.

A case not unlike this occurred in 1822, when Collier
Hill left slaves to four trustees, one of whom was "Richard

Contentnea Society vs. Dickinson, 1 Devereaux, p. 189.

349] Free Negroes and Emancipation. 33

Graves, of the Methodist Church," with the injunction to
keep the said slaves for such purposes as "they [the trus-
tees] shall judge most for the glory of God and the good of
the said slaves." The case came before the Supreme Court,
and the opinion declared that such a bequest, "when it could
be fairly collected from other parts of the will that the tes-
tator did not mean by the bequest any personal benefit to
the legatees, was held to constitute them trustees for the
purpose of emancipation," and as such purpose was illegal
it was held that the trustees take the property in trust for
the legal heirs.1

In all these cases the cast-iron necessity of keeping
slavery unbendingly confined to its present condition, cut-
ting off the least tendency to amelioration, is clearly seen.
Slavery absolute — nothing short of it — and as few free
negroes as possible ; that was the idea.

As time passed this feature of the law became harder.
Most severe was a case before the Court in 1849. The facts
were these. William Quarry, of Mecklenberg, conveyed by
deed absolute to Peoples and others a slave woman Linney,
who was married to a freeman. Desiring that she might con-
tinue to live with her husband he conveyed to the same
parties twelve acres of land with a house on it, presumably
for her use. No consideration was paid, although it
was duly acknowledged. The defendants claimed that they
were absolute owners, that the donor conveyed the woman
and her family to provide for her comfort and to prevent
the division of the family. They allowed the husband to
occupy the house with his wife for a certain rent. They
took her and her children under their personal care and
agreed to control their conduct. Yet the arrangement
would not do at all. It was, said the Court, qualified
slavery, and the conveyance was void. Linney and her
children were given to the heirs of the donor, and, moreover,

1 Huckaby vs. Jones, 2 Hawks, p. 720. See also Stephens vs. Ely,
1 Devereaux's Equity, p. 497.
3

34 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [350

the donees were held liable, "with just deductions," for the
profits due from her services while in their hands, and
because the defendants had attempted to defraud the law
they were to pay the costs.1

Severe as these cases seem the Court showed that within
the range of the fact that the free negro class must not be
extended they were disposed to be as humane as possible.
In the case of Redding vs. Long,2 a grantor had given slaves
in trust during his lifetime and directed the trustee to send
them to Liberia after the grantor's death, if they wanted to
go. The Court declared that this will was not against the
spirit of the laws. "Though slaves have no capacity to make
contracts," said the Court, "yet they have both mental and
moral capacity to make election between remaining here
and being slaves, and leaving the State and being free."

Free Negroes. — Slaveholders disliked and feared free
negroes because they demoralized the quiet conduct of the
slaves. These negroes were under no direct control of the
white man. They might aid the slaves in planning a revolt,
in disposing of stolen property, in running away, and in any
other act of defiance. Privilege after privilege was with-
drawn from them. At first they hao. most of the rights and
duties of the poor white man ; they fought in the Revolu-
tionary armies, mustered in the militia, voted in the elec-
tions, and had the liberty to go where they chose. At
length they lost their right to vote; their service in the
militia was restricted to that of musicians ; and the patrol
came more and more to limit their freedom of travel. Taxes
and road duty alone of all their functions of citizenship
were at last preserved. The story of the appearance of these
progressive limitations is not a pleasant one.

It was in 1787 (chap. 6) that the Assembly enacted that
no free negro should entertain a slave at his house at night
or on Sunday, on penalty of fine. If the fine was not paid
the culprit was to be hired out long enough to pay it. The

1 Lemmond vs. Peoples, 6 Iredell's Equity, p. 137.
*4 Jones' Equity, p. 216,

351] Free Negroes and Emancipation. 35

same law forbade a free negro to marry or to cohabit with
a slave without the written consent of the master, and in
1830 (chap. 4, sec. 3) such relations were forbidden even
though the master gave his written consent, and the penalty
for violation was thirty-nine lashes.1 In 1795 (chap. 16)
free negroes who settled in the State were required to give
bond of £200 for their good behavior, in default of which
they were sold by the sheriff for the benefit of the public.
In 1826 (chap. 13) a free, negro was forbidden to be on a
ship at night, or on Sunday, without a pass from a justice
of the peace, unless, indeed, he were employed there; but
the punishment for a violation of this law fell on the captain
of the ship. Neither must a free negro trade with a slave,
and a free negro must have a license from the County Court
to hawk or peddle.2

The collection of fines from free negroes was often diffi-
cult, and in 183 1 (chap. 13) the Legislature enacted that
when the Court had reason to believe that a free negro
could not pay the fine imposed upon him it might direct that
he be hired out to the highest bidder for a time long enough
to pay the fine. The bidder who bid the shortest time took
the negro. The relation between hirer and hired was to be
the same as that between master and apprentice. A free
negro was not to be hired out in this way for a longer term
than five years. If a longer term was the lowest bid the fine
was to be reduced to an amount which five years' service
would satisfy.3 Later it was thought necessary to provide
that such a free negro should be well supplied with food,
clothing, medicine and lodging; that he should be kept
employed in some useful and industrious occupation, that
he should not be taken from the county during service, and

1 State vs. Fore, 1 Iredell, p. 378.

2 Laws of 1830, chap. 7, and 1831, chap. 28.

3 The constitutionality of this law was questioned but it was upheld
by the Supreme Court. See State vs. Oxendine, 1 Devereaux and
Battle, p. 435, and State vs. Manuel, 4 Devereaux and Battle,
p. 20.

36 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [352

that he should be produced in Court at the end of his ser-
vice or oftener, if so ordered by the Court.1

In 1826 (chap. 21) the relation of the free negro to the
State was pretty thoroughly restated by law. With free
negroes were now to be included all persons of negro blood
to the fourth generation inclusive, though one ancestor in
each generation may have been white.2 It was declared that
no free negro should move into the State ; and if one did so
and did not leave within twenty days after being notified
of the provisions of this law he should be fined $500, or held
to labor for ten years or less. After paying such a penalty
he must leave within thirty days or suffer a repetition of the
punishment. He who brought in a free negro to settle in
the State should pay a fine of $500. 3 Any able-bodied free
negro "found spending his or her time in idleness and dissi-
pation, or having no regular or honest employment," was
to be arrested and made to give bond for good behavior, in
default of which he or she was to be hired out for such a
term as the court might think "reasonable and just and
calculated to reform him or her to habits of industry or
morality, not exceeding three years for any one offense."
Furthermore the Courts might bind out the children of such
free negroes who were not industriously and honestly em-
ployed. Persons hiring free negroes under this act were
required to furnish them with proper food and clothing,
to treat them humanely, and to teach them some trade or
other useful employment. In the later days of slavery4 the
hirer was to give bond to perform this duty, and on failure
he was to pay the negro the amount of the bond, and also to
lose his services and be liable for a misdemeanor. A further
check was placed on the number of free negroes in 1830

1 Revised Code, chap. 107, sec. 77.

2 See State vs. Dempsy, 9 Iredell, p. 384.

3 It was under the operation of this law that Lunsford Lane was
driven from the State. Seethe author's "Anti-Slavery Leaders of
North Carolina," p. 60.

* Revised Code, chap. 107, sec. 77.

353] Free Negroes and Emancipation. 37

(chap. 14) when it was provided that those who were
willingly absent from the State for more than ninety days
together should not be allowed to return to it. It was a
capital offense without benefit of clergy for any person of
color to rape a white female.1 By law of 1830 (chap. 10,
sec. 2) a free negro was forbidden to gamble with a slave,
or to allow a slave to gamble in his house. A further
restraint came in 1840 (chap. 30) when a free negro was
forbidden to carry a gun or other deadly weapon without
license from the County Court.2 A free negro was not
allowed to sell or to give spirituous liquor to any person what-
ever,3 and if a free negro were charged with the support of a
bastard child, the Court might order him bound out for such
a sum as would maintain the child.4 Thus it will be seen
that in regard to his rights of conduct the free negro was
reduced more and more to the position of the slave.

The legal status of the free negro was peculiar. Was he
a freeman, or was he less than a freeman? The former
he was by logical intent; yet he was undoubtedly denied,
as has just been stated, many rights which mark the estate
of freemen. At any time in the eighteenth century, I sup-
pose, there would have been no question about the free
negro being equally a freeman with the whites. After the
severe laws of the third and fourth decades of the nineteenth
century opinion changed. It was thus that it was as late
as 1844 that the Supreme Court undertook to fix the status
of free negroes. It then declared that "free persons of color
in this State are not to be considered as citizens in the
largest sense of the term, or if they are, they occupy such
a position as justifies the Legislature in adopting a course
of policy in its acts peculiar to them, so that they do not
violate the great principles of justice which lie at the founda-
tion of all law."5 This position is further illustrated by the
opinion of the Court in regard to the free negro's right to

1 Laws of 1823, chap. 1229. 2 State vs. Lane, 8 Iredell, p. 256.
3 Laws of 1844, chap. 86. * Revised Code, chap. 107, sec. 76.

6 State vs. Newsom, 5 Iredell, p. 250.

38 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [354

defend himself against physical force. It was held in 1850
that insolence from a free negro to a white man would
excuse a battery in the same manner and to the same extent
as insolence from a slave.1 In 1859 the Court became more
explicit. It declared that a free negro was in the peace of
the State, and added at length : "So while the law will not
allow a free negro to return blow for blow and engage in a
fight with a white man under ordinary circumstances, as
one white man may do with another or one free negro with
another, he is not deprived absolutely of the right of self-
defense, but a middle course is adopted" by which he must
prove "that it became necessary for him to strike in order
to protect himself from great bodily harm or grievous
oppression."2

More important still is the history of free negroes and
suffrage.3 The first State Constitution provided that free-
holders should vote for members of the State Senate and
freemen for members of the House of Commons. By stat-
ute a freeholder was one who owned in fee or for life fifty
acres of land. When the Constitution began to operate it
was a day of strenuous danger. Free negroes were enlisted
in the patriot armies, and discharged the other burdens of
government. They were admitted also to the privileges of
citizenship. Negro freemen voted for members of the Com-
mons and when they were freeholders they voted for mem-
bers of the Senate. Having formed political alliances they
found protectors in their party allies, and, eventually, foes in
their party opponents. As they became more and more the
object of suspicion there was a stronger demand for their
disfranchisement. In some localities they ceased to vote at
all. This was probably where the political party with which
they affiliated was in the minority. In many com-
munities they voted and were protected by their friends.

1 State vs. Jowers, 11 Iredell, p. 535.

2 State vs. Davis, 7 Jones, p. 52.

3 See the author's paper on " Suffrage in North Carolina," Report
of the American Historical Association, 1895, pp. 272-3.

355] Free Negroes and Emancipation. 39

Of course, where they did not vote it was through their own
will — whether it was influenced by choice or by fear of the
whites. Unquestionably, they were not a desirable class of
voters. In Granville County, it is said, they lost the favor
of the people because they persistently voted for one Potter,
a demagogue of plausible speech, who had not the respect of
the best whites. At length it came to be regarded as a blot
on a man's political record to have the support of the free
negroes. It was not unusual for candidates to twit one
another with such support and for the one to reply that he
would give up the negro vote if the other would do the
same.1

In the triumph of the pro-slavery views, about 1830, the
free negro was destined to lose the franchise. The matter
came to a head in the Constitutional Convention of 1835.
Already a law had been passed to forbid the free negro to
hold office in the State. I do not know just how the act
which called the Constitutional Convention came to include
in the objects of the convention the consideration of the dis-
franchisement of free negroes. Perhaps it was a compro-
mise wrung from the men of the West by those of the East
in order to get popular representation. Its consideration
was made optional. There were many friends of the black
man in the convention, but the majority was against him.
Realizing their position they tried to secure a law which
would save the franchise to the more industrious and intelli-
gent of the free negroes. It was therefore proposed to
limit the right to vote to such of this class as had a freehold
estate worth $250. The debate on this proposition was
long. It was argued by the affirmative that this would be
an incentive to the thrift and good conduct of the free
negroes ; that it would make the better men in that class
friends of the whites in case of slave riot ; that many free
negroes had fought in the Revolution; that they usually

1 See David Dodge: "The Free Negroes of North Carolina," The
Atlantic, Jan., 1886. David Dodge is O. W. Blacknall, Esq., Kit-
trels, N. C.

40 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [356

voted for good men when they voted, and that if they were
taxed they ought to vote. It was admitted that the bill of
rights was intended to apply to white men only ; but, it was
said, expediency demanded the present concession. It was
not denied that the prejudice against these people was justi-
fied by the unworthiness of many of them ; but the whites
were largely responsible ; for, it was added, "the whites are
the principal corrupters of the morals of these people." Mr.
Shober, of Surry, an extremely western county, was more
outspoken. He said that it was sufficient for him that a
free negro was a human being, that he had a will and was
a free agent. If held liable for taxes and other burdens he
ought to have some privileges. Said Mr. Giles : "It was
charged that the vote of the free negro could be purchased —
purchased by whom? Undoubtedly by white men. The
Legislature had been remiss in its duty to the free negroes.
Instead of improving their situation they appear to have
acted on a principle of hostility toward them." The con-
vention ought to do something to raise them from their
degradation. Judge Gaston also spoke for the negro.
After Macon he was the most distingished man in the con-
vention. The question, said he, was not the giving of a
right but the taking of one away. He was willing to
restrict the right of suffrage ; but those free negroes who
possessed freeholds were honest men and perhaps Christians
and they should not be politically excommunicated on
account of their color. "Let them know that they are part
of the body politic, and they will feel an attachment to the
form of government, and have a fixed interest in the pros-
perity of the community, and will exercise an important
influence over the slaves."

On the other hand, it was argued that a free negro was
not a citizen, and that if he had ever voted it was illegally.
Being called freemen in the abstract did not confer on them
the dignity of citizenship. Fighting in the Revolution did
not make them citizens any more than it made citizens of
the slaves, many of whom fought in the Revolution. The

357] Free Negroes and Emancipation. 41

lot of the free negro was not a hard one. "It far surpassed
the nondescript situation of the ancient Helots and villeins,
or the ignoble condition of the oppressed peasants of
Poland." A slave was not a citizen. When was a freed
slave naturalized? And until naturalized could he be a
citizen? Citizens of one State have privileges of citi-
zens in the other States, and yet North Carolina severely
restricted their coming to its borders, thus implying that
they were not citizens. It was granted that the better class
would suffer hardship in losing the right of suffrage, yet
the interest of a few must yield to the general good.
Although, it was said, free negroes voted elsewhere in the
State, yet the privilege was not allowed to those in the east-
ern counties, and they had accepted the restriction "with
cheerfulness and contentment." The cold logic of the
views of the majority was stated by Mr. Bryan, of Carteret,
as follows :

"This is, to my mind, a nation of white people, and the
enjoyment of all civil and social rights by a distinctive class
of individuals is purely permissive, and unless there be a
perfect equality in every respect it cannot be demanded as a
right. * * * It may be urged that this is a harsh and
cruel doctrine, and unjust, and by no means reciprocal in
its operation. I do not acknowledge any equality between
the white man and the free negro in the enjoyment of politi-
cal rights. The free negro is a citizen of necessity and
must, as long as he abides among us, submit to the laws
which necessity and the peculiarity of his position compel us
to adopt."

Mr. McQueen, of Chatham, continued the argument : The
Government of North Carolina did not make the negro a
slave, said he. It gave the boon of freedom, but- did that
carry the further boon of citizenship? "Is there any solid
ground for the belief that a free mulatto can have any per-
manent interest with, and attachment to, this country? He
finds the door of office closed against him by the bars and
bolts of public sentiment; he finds the circle of every

42 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [358

respectable society closed against him ; let him conduct
himself with as much propriety as he may, he finds himself
suspended between two classes of society — the whites and
the blacks — condemned by the one and despised by the
other; and when his favorite candidate in the election pre-
vails, it communicates no gratification in his breast, for the
candidate will be a white man, and he knows full well that
the white man eyes him with contempt." More relentless still
was Mr. Wilson, of Perquimons. He said : "A white man
may go to the house of a free black, maltreat and abuse him,
and commit any outrage upon his family, for all of which the
law cannot reach him, unless some white person saw the act
committed — some fifty years of experience having satisfied
the Legislature that the black man does not possess sufficient
intelligence and integrity to be intrusted with the important
privilege of giving evidence against a white man. And after
all this shall we invest him with the more important rights of
a freeman?"

After the discussion had continued two days, the matter
was carried against the free negro by a vote of 65 to 62.
It was the strongly slaveholding East that carried the vote ;
for, of the majority, 47 votes were eastern and 18 were west-
ern, while of the minority 40 were western and 22 eastern.
The amendment to the Constitution as finally adopted read :
"No free negro, free mulatto, or free person of mixed blood,
descended from negro ancestors to the fourth generation
inclusive (though one ancestor of each generation may have
been a white person) shall vote for members of the Senate
or House of Commons."

There were more free negroes in North Carolina in i860
than in any other State except Virginia. Rigorous as they
were the North Carolina laws against these people were
more lenient than the laws of Virginia or of any other State.
Consequently many free negroes quietly crossed into the
former State and settled there undisturbed in the northern
or southern counties. They took the poorest land. Usu-
ally they rented a few acres ; often they bought a small

359] Free Negroes and Emancipation. 43

"patch," and on it dwelt in log huts of the rudest construc-
tion. In either case they supplemented their resources by
following some simple trade. They were well-diggers,
shoemakers, blacksmiths, fiddlers, hucksters, pedlers, and
so forth. Besides, they were easily called in to help the
whites on occasions of need. There were a very few who
accumulated money and some of these became slave-owners.
Although it was against the law for them to come into the
State, their arrival was tolerated both because the law was
recognized as severe and because their services were wanted
in the community. Many of them had Indian blood in
their veins, and when such was the case they were a little
distant towards the slaves. Unambitious, often immoral,
they were of the least value to society, which, indeed, offered
them no inducement to be better than they were. They
usually were on terms of friendship with that other class
of incompetents, the "poor whites." Sometimes these two
classes lived on terms of sexual intimacy. In Granville
County there was a pretty well authenticated story of a white
woman who had her colored lover bled and drank some of
the blood so that she might swear she had negro blood in
her and thus be enabled to marry the object of her affection.
She succeeded in her purpose and the couple lived to rear
a family of children.1 I have been speaking of free negroes
who lived in the country districts. In towns they fared
better and accumulated wealth.

Regardless of the severe laws there were not a few free
negroes who acquired wealth and consideration. Of th's
class were notably Rev. John Chavis, Lunsford Lane and
John C. Stanley. The first of these will be noticed in
another chapter, the second has been treated by the author
with much fulness elsewhere,2 and here I shall speak of the
third only.

'David Dodge [O. W. Blacknall] in The At/atitic Monthly, Jan.,
1886.
"'Anti-slavery Leaders of North Carolina,'' p. 60.

44 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [360

John C. Stanley was a mulatto, the son of an African
born slave woman, who was brought to Newbern, N. C.
(from the West Indies), before the Revolutionary War. He
was a barber by trade and throughout his days of manhood
was known as "Barber Jack." He was a faithful servant,
and in 1808 he was liberated by the General Assembly on
petition of Mrs. Lydia Stewart, into whose possession he had
come. He soon began to acquire negro slaves and land
till at length he had sixty-four slaves and as many more
bound free negroes working his several plantations. Says
Col. John D. Whitford : "He was popular, too, with both
slave and free negroes generally, notwithstanding he was a
hard taskmaster. Yes, he worked all well and fed and
clothed indifferently."1 He married a moor, a copper col-
ored woman who was not a slave. He got his start in the
barber business — although he made much of his money by
discounting notes. Certain white men of means who did
not care to go openly into the business of sharp discounting,
took him for a partner and furnished the means. He had
three sons, John, Alexander and Charles. John became an
expert bookkeeper and was employed in that capacity by
a prominent firm. John C. Stanley amassed a fortune sup-
posed to be worth more than $40,000 ; but in his old age he
lost much of it by bad management. His family held them-
selves aloof from the other negroes of the community. They
were members of the Presbyterian Church, to which Mrs.
Stewart, his former mistress, had belonged. This lady lived
till 1822, and when old and feeble could be seen on the
streets in fine weather supported on the arm of her faithful
old servant — now fourteen years a freeman. Thus she took
the air and thus she went to church on Sunday. When the
couple had arrived at the church, John would conduct her to

^ee Raleigh, N. C, Morning Post, Dec. 5, 1897. Other facts
not mentioned by Col. Whitford are from statements made to the
writer by Maj. D. W. Hurt, Goldsboro, N. C.

361] Free Negroes and Emancipation. 45

her pew and then leave her to take his seat with his own
family in the place assigned to colored people.

Many of the free negroes were in circumstances of inde-
pendent thrift, and from many parts of the State I have had
evidence that some negroes were slaveholders. In New-
bern especially there were a number of such thrifty colored
men. Notable among these was John Good. He was a son
of his master and for a long time a slave. When the master
died, his two surviving children, who were daughters, had
but little property besides this boy, John, who was a barber.
John took up the task of supporting them. He boarded them
in good houses and otherwise provided for them well. His
faithfulness won him many friends among the best citizens,
and when both of his mistresses were married these friends
united to persuade the owners to liberate him as a reward
for his services. Unfortunately, freedom proved no boon.
He fell into bad habits, took to drink and soon died. There
were other thrifty and notable free negroes in the same
place, as, for example, John Y. Green, a carpenter and con-
tractor ; Richard Hazel, a blacksmith of means ; Albert and
Freeman Morris, described as two "nice young men," and
thoroughly respected, tailors by trade ; and Scipio, slave of
Dr. Hughes, who was a blacksmith and owner of a livery
stable. Another was Fellow Bragg, a tailor who was thor-
oughly conscientious and so good a workman that promi-
nent people were known to move their custom to the shops
at which he was employed in order that he might work on
it. Most of these men moved to Cincinnati sooner or later.
What became of them after that I do not know.1 The con-
ditions here recorded for Newbern were not unusual for
North Carolina towns in general. Everywhere there were
usually a number of prosperous free negroes. Most of them
were mulattoes, not a few of them were set free by their
fathers and thus they fell easily into the life around them.

xThe facts in this paragraph are from Maj. D. W. Hurt, formerly
of Newbern, but now of Goldsboro, N. C.

46 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [362

This mulatto class was partly due to the easy sexual rela-
tions between the races. A white man who kept a negro
mistress ordinarily lost no standing in society on account of
it. The habit, though not common, was not unusual. Often
the mistress was a slave, and thus there were frequent eman-
cipations either by gift or by purchase of liberty, till the
stricter spirit of the laws after 1831 checked it.

CHAPTER III.

RELIGIOUS LIFE.

I have already said that the central idea of slavery in
North Carolina was a determination to perpetuate the insti-
tution, whatever the price, and at the same time a disposi-
tion to make it as gentle as possible for the slave, pro-
vided that doing so did not tend to loosen his bonds. This
same idea is found in the master's regulation of the religious
life of the slave. Without question he was willing to make
the slave a Christian. He was anxious to do it. He spent
money with more or less bountifulness to do it. This was
sometimes done by men who were not Christians them-
selves, but who wanted their slaves to be Christians for the
purposes of discipline ; but oftener it was done out of pure
benevolence, and with a devout purpose to accomplish the
spiritual welfare of the negro. Persons who have formed
their opinions of Southern society from the popular works
of certain novelists are apt to think of the slave-owner as
a fine-bred gentleman of cavalier instincts and patriarchal
feelings. Such an estimate is but half true. There was in
the South — in North Carolina it was very strong — a large
class of slave-owners who approached more nearly to the
English farmer type than to the English gentleman type.
They were usually self-made men, of fair intelligence, and
of some education. They were generally thrifty and often
wealthy. The majority of them were Christians, mostly
of the Methodist, Baptist and Presbyterian Churches. This
class of men has received but little attention from those who
have written of Southern society, and yet it was the back-
bone of that society. There was little that was ideal about
such men. They were humdrum, but they were honest,

47

48 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [364

pious and substantial, and they were numerous. Such peo-
ple are to be compared, not only in wealth, but in general
social development as well, with the upper farmer class in
the North and West. I do not mean to say that they were
all of the South. The planter class, in the ordinary use of
the term, was there, and it was the governing class and the
class that touched the outside world. It went to summer
resorts, and to Congress, and to political conventions, and it
got into novels, and sometimes into history, and it was usu-
ally benignly patriarchal, but the farmer class as a class came
closer into touch with the slave and in a hundred ways soft-
ened the harshness of an institution which no one knew
how to modify in law.

It was, indeed, in a harsh spirit that the law came at last
to regulate the religious relations of the slave. In the begin-
ning, when the slaves wTere just from barbarism and free-
dom, it was thought best to forbid them to have churches
of their own. But as they became more manageable, this
restriction was omitted from the law1 and the churches
went on with their work among the slaves. A large num-
ber of negroes were converted and taken into church mem-
bership, some of the more intelligent negroes were taught
to read and were licensed to preach. Some churches made
a specialty of work among the slaves. Often negro preach-
ers held services with their own race and sometimes estab-
lished separate congregations, though the latter was not
the rule. The advantage of this system was that it was
developing the negro into self-dependence religiously, but
doing it under the intimate oversight of the whites among
whom he was interspersed. Never before or since was the
relation between the negro and his white neighbors so aus-
picious. The change came openly in 1830, when a law was
passed by the General Assembly which destroyed the hopes
of all those who were favorable to this movement. It was
enacted that no free person or slave should teach a slave

JSee the author's "Slavery and Servitude," p. 50.

365] Religious Life. 49

to read or write, the use of figures excepted, or give to a
slave any book or pamphlet.1 This law was no doubt
intended to meet the danger from the circulation of incen-
diary literature, which was believed to be imminent; yet
it is no less true that it bore directly on the slave's religious
life. It cut him off from the reading of the Bible — a point
much insisted on by the agitators of the North — and it fore-
stalled that mental development which was necessary to
him in comprehending the Christian life. The only argu-
ment made for this law was that if a slave could read he
would soon become acquainted with his rights. Caruthers
thought it a shame that a Christian people would make such
arguments. "How dare you," he exclaims, "by your
impious enactments doom millions of your fellow-beings to
such a gross and perpetual ignorance !"2 A year later a
severer blow fell. The Legislature then forbade any slave
or free person of color to preach, exhort, or teach "in any
prayer-meeting or other association for worship where
slaves of different families are collected together" on penalty
of receiving not more than thirty-nine lashes.3 The result
was to increase the responsibility of the churches of the
whites. They were compelled to abandon the hope of see-
ing the negro made his own evangel and to take on them-
selves the task of handing down to the slaves religious
instruction in such a way that it should be comprehended
by their immature minds and should not be too strongly
flavored with the bitterness of bondage. With the mandate
of the Legislature the churches acquiesced.

As to the preaching" of the dominant class to the slaves
it always had one element of disadvantage. It seemed to
the negro to be given with a view to upholding slavery. As
an illustration of this I may introduce the testimony of

1 Revised Statutes, pp. 209, 578, and Revised Code, p. 218.

2 See the unpublished manuscript of E. W. Caruthers's book on
"Slavery," p. 396. It is preserved in the library of Greensboro
Female College, Greensboro, N. C.

3 Revised Statutes, p. 580, and Revised Code, p. 576.
4

50 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [366

Lunsford Lane. This slave was the property of a prominent
and highly esteemed citizen of Raleigh, N. C. He hired
his own time and with his father manufactured smoking
tobacco by a secret process. His business grew and at
length he bought his own freedom. Later, he opened a
wood yard, a grocery store and kept teams for hauling.
He at last bought his own home, and had bargained to buy
his wife and children for $2500, when the rigors of the law
were applied and he was driven from the State. He was
intelligent enough to get a clear view of slavery from the
slave's standpoint. He was later a minister, and undoubt-
edly had the confidence and esteem of some of the leading
people of Raleigh, among whom was Governor Morehead.
He is a competent witness for the negro. In speaking of
the sermons from white preachers he said that the favorite
texts were "Servants, be obedient to your masters," and
"he that knoweth his master's will and doth it not shall
be beaten with many stripes." He adds, "Similar passages
with but few exceptions formed the basis of most of the
public instruction. The first commandment was to obey
our masters, and the second was like unto it ; to labor as
faithfully when they or the overseers were not watching
as when they were. I will not do them the injustice to say
that connected with this instruction there was not mingled
much that was excellent." All this was natural. To be a
slave was the fundamental fact of the negro's life. To be
a good slave was to obey and to labor. Not to obey and not
to labor were, in the master's eye, the fundamental sins of a
slave. Such a condition was inherent in slavery. On the
other hand, many of the more independent negroes, those
who in their hearts never accepted the institution of slavery,
were repelled from the white man's religion, and thus the
support of a very valuable portion of the race was lost.
This condition of affairs was not to be entirely remedied
by having negro preachers ; but it might have been amelior-
ated by it, and if, in the long course of time, the church
work among the slaves could have been done entirely by

367] Religious Life. 51

negro preachers acting under white supervision the salva-
tion of the slave would have been very near its accomplish-
ment.

As it was, it is no doubt true that many slaves were
reached by religious influences. Through the teachings of
the church many were enabled to bend in meekness under
their bondage and be content with a hopeless lot. There
are whites to whom Christianity is still chiefly a burden-
bearing affair. Such quietism has a negative value. It
saves men from discontent and society from chaos. But
it has little positive and constructive value. The idea of
social reform which is also associated with the standard of
Christian duty was not for the slave. Those very few who,
like Lunsford Lane, did work themselves heroically to free-
dom were acting on principles not usually preached from
the pulpit in the latter part of our period.

How a slave looked at the religion that was brought to
him may be seen from the following words of Lunsford
Lane, who seems to have been a consistent Christian :

I was permitted to attend church, and this I esteem a great bless-
ing. It was there I received much instruction, which I trust was a
great benefit to me. I trusted, too, that I had experienced the renew-
ing influences of divine grace. I looked upon myself as a great sin-
ner before God, and upon the doctrine of the great atonement,
through the suffering and death of the Saviour, as a source of continual
joy to my heart. After obtaining from my mistress a written permit,
a thing always required in such cases, I had been baptized and
received into fellowship with the Baptist denomination. Thus in
religious matters I had been indulged in the exercise of my own
conscience; this was a favor not always granted to slaves. There,
was one hard doctrine to which we as slaves were compelled to listen,
which I found difficult to receive. We were often told by the minis-
ter how much we owed to God for bringing us over from the benighted
shores of Africa and permitting us to listen to the sound of the gos-
pel. In ignorance of any special revelation that God had made to
master, or to his ancestors, that my ancestors should be stolen and
enslaved on the soil of America to accomplish their salvation, I was
slow to believe all my teachers enjoined on this subject. How sur-
prising, then, this high moral end being accomplished, that no proc-
lamation of emancipation had before this been made ! Many of us

52 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [368

were as highly civilized as some of our masters, and, as to piety, in many
instances their superiors. I was rather disposed to believe that God had
originally granted me temporal freedom, which wicked men had
forcibly taken from me — which now I had been compelled to pur-
chase at great cost. * * * There was one very kind-hearted cler-
gyman whom I used often to hear; he was very popular with the col-
ored people. But after he had preached a sermon to us in which he
urged from the Bible that it was the will of Heaven from all eternity
that we should be slaves, and our masters be our owners, many of
us left him, considering, like the doubting disciple of old, "This is a
hard saying, who can hear it P"1

Dr. Caruthers, whose long pastorate in Guilford ought
to have given him good grounds for speaking, said that
slaves knew little of the Bible, except as they picked it up
from others, "and that little," he adds, "they don't know half
their time whether to believe or disbelieve. It is often said
that many of them become very pious people, and although
we can't know the heart, charity would lead us to believe or
hope so ; but no thanks to slavery or the slave laws." It was
the Lord's work. The negroes who were spoken of as pious,
said he, did not have "those enlarged views or that expan-
sion of soul which is always imparted by scriptural and
enlightened sentiments of immortality."2

All the churches of North Carolina, so far as I have been
able to ascertain, received freely negro members. Every
church had its space reserved for negroes. It was almost
invariably in the gallery, if there was one, or in the back of
the church, if there was no gallery. In the ceremony of the
Lord's Supper, after the whites had partaken, the sacra-
ment was administered to the negro members. In many
churches, particularly of Methodist and Baptist denomina-
tions, which had often many colored communicants, there
was a special service in the afternoon by the white preacher
for the negroes. It was to these two churches that most of
the negroes joined themselves, although there were some in
each of the other leading bodies. There was much reason

xSee Hawkins' "Memoir of Lunsford Lane," 64-66.
2 See manuscript book on "Slavery," p. 294.

369] Religious Life. 53

for this. These two churches in North Carolina were
organized for the masses. Their doctrines were easily com-
prehended and emotional ; and the negro is a creature of
emotions. Moreover these bodies made special efforts to
reach the negroes. They went among the large slave plan-
tations as missionaries. Other denominations paid more
attention to household slaves. In not a few cases Meth-
odism began with negro congregations and in at least one
place it was introduced by a negro preacher. But true as it
was that the Methodists and Baptists attracted the negroes
more strongly, it was perhaps equally true that the Quakers,
in proportion to their own numbers, were more closely
intimate with the negroes than any other religious body
in the State. Of this more will be said later on. Let us
now consider the Methodists and the slave.

In the eighteenth century the record of the Methodists
was clearly against slavery. John Wesley himself said that
the slave trade was the sum of all villainies, although White-
field was not opposed to it. The anti-slavery sentiment
was strongest in the Northern Conferences, although it was
not unknown in the Southern. As early as 1780 the Con-
ference of all the Church declared: "Slavery is contrary to
the laws of God, man and nature and hurtful to society, con-
trary to the dictates of conscience and pure religion, and
doing that which we would not that others should do to us
and ours."1 In 1784 the Conference resolved to expel from
membership those who bought and sold slaves.2 This step
was calculated to arouse much opposition in the South
among the laymen, even if the "preachers had favored it.
It occasioned much criticism and aroused much feeling in
both Virginia and the two Carohnas. In the spring of 1875,
Dr. Coke arrived in America. He preached strongly
against slavery and got the Virginia Conference to petition
the Legislature for gradual emancipation. This made him
very unpopular, so much so that he barely escaped bodily
violence. The slaveholders now withdrew their slaves from

Conference Minutes, p. 25. 27bid., pp. 47-48.

54 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [370

contact with Methodist preachers.1 The Conference of
1785 thought it prudent to rescind its former action, but
was particular to add : "N. B. — We do hold in the deepest
abhorrence the practice of slavery, and shall not cease to
seek its destruction by all wise and prudent means."2 So
far as an open declaration for emancipation is concerned,
the Conference was quiet for some time; but in 1795 it
showed its concern in the negro's welfare by setting apart a
fast day "to lament the deep-rooted vassalage that still
reigneth in many parts of this free and independent United
States," and it added: "We feel gratified that many thous-
ands of these poor people are free and pious."3

As the Church became strong enough to organize Con-
ferences, in the various sections the question of the existence
of slavery was referred to these bodies and thus localized to
an extent. But one particular question that concerned all
was the propriety of allowing a preacher to hold slaves. As
early as 1783 the Conference forbade a preacher to own
slaves in a State where it was legal to free them.4 Much dis-
cussion grew up over this matter early in the present century.
Finally it was settled on the lines earlier adopted. It was
agreed in 1816 that no slaveholder should hold office m
States which allowed emancipation and subsequent resi-
dence of the liberated negro. Here was a distinct compro-
mise fixed on the principle of sectional conditions, the prin-
ciple which four years later the Missouri compromise
followed in the broader sphere of politics.5 The Church
continued the former strong declaration against slavery in
the abstract, a declaration which, it was likely, was supported
by Southern preachers. It was on the compromise of 18 16
that the fight which led to separation in 1844 was made.

1Drew: "Life of Dr. Coke," pp. 132-139.
2Conference Minutes, p. 55.
3 Ibid., pp. 163-164.

kIbid., p. 41, and the Discipline of 1821, p. 69.

5See the Discipline of 1817 and Redpath's "Organization of the
Methodist Episcopal Church South," p. 10.

371] Religious Life. 55

The occasion was the censure voted against Bishop
Andrew because he had married in Georgia a woman who
owned slaves. The Southern organization which was now
formed continued its protest against slavery. The first
edition of its Discipline, 1846, said in the words of the
older Discipline : "We declare that we are as much as ever
convinced of the great evil of slavery. Therefore, no slave-
holder shall be eligible to any official position in our Church
hereafter where the Laws of the State in which he lives will
admit of emancipation and permit the liberated slave to
enjoy freedom. When any traveling preacher becomes an
owner of a slave or slaves, by any means, he shall forfeit
his ministerial character in our Church, unless he execute,
if it be practicable, a legal emancipation of such slaves, con-
formable to the laws of the State in which he lives." Fur-
thermore, preachers were to enforce prudently on their mem-
bers the duty of teaching slaves to read the Bible and to
attend church services. Colored preachers and officials
were guaranteed the privileges of their official relation
"where the usages of the country do not forbid it." Of all
of these ameliorating conditions to the slave but one was
applicable in North Carolina ; for here he could not be
legally emancipated and remain in the State, nor could he
be allowed to preach or be taught to read the Bible. It
only remained for him to aspire to be some church official
lower than a preacher. The original strong desire to chris-
tianize the negro, which the Methodists never forsook, was
clearly bound and held in restraint in conformity to the
newer spirit of harshness that, as has already been said,
seized the State Legislature about 1830.

The labors of the Methodists among the slaves began in
the very first days of Methodism in the State. The General
Conference in 17871 urged the preachers to labor among the
slaves, to receive into full membership those that seemed

1 See Minutes of Conference, p. 67. The Methodist Church in
America dates from 1784.

56 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [372

worthy, and "to exercise the whole Methodist Discipline
among- them." How well these efforts prospered may be
seen from the following figures : In 1787 there were in
North Carolina1 5017 white and 492 colored members; in

1788 there were 5263 white and 775 black members; in

1789 there were 6644 whites and 1139 blacks; in 1790 there
were 7518 whites to 1749 blacks; in 1795 there were 8414
whites to 1719 blacks; in 1800 there 6363 whites to 2108
blacks; in 1805 there were 9385 whites to 2394 blacks; in
1810 there were 13,535 whites to 4724 blacks; in 1815 there
were 14,283 whites to 5165 blacks; in 1820 there were 13,179
whites to 5933 blacks; in 1825 there were 15,421 whites to
7292 blacks; in 1830 there were 19,228 whites to 10,182
blacks ; in 1835 there were 27,539 whites to 8766 blacks,
and in 1839, which is the last year for which I have been
able to obtain the figures, there were 26,405 whites to 9302
blacks. Here was a rapid proportional gain of the blacks
over the whites. In 1787 there were not 10 per cent, as
many black as white members; in 1839 there were 35 per
cent, as many. The membership for each race varied nota-
bly, but the variations were wider with the negro race.
This indicates, it must be supposed, the more emotional
nature of the negro. A wave of revival feeling which would
sweep over the country would swell the roll of membership
and a few years of coolness would contract it.

Although there were negro Methodists in most sections
of the State, they were most numerous in the eastern coun-
ties. In this section the Methodists often began their work
with an appeal to the slaves — "negro churches," their meet-
ing houses were often called by the more aristocratic
denominations. An illustration is Wilmington. Here
William Meredith, a Methodist preacher, arrived at the
beginning of this century. He began to work among the

aThe estimates are based on reports in the Minutes. It is doubtful
whether some charges near the State boundaries were in North Caro-
lina or out of it. Therefore, the figures may not be absolutely cor-
rect, but for purposes of comparison they are adequate.

373] Religions Life. 57

slaves. He bought a lot, and through the penny collection
from the blacks and the scanty contributions of the few
poorer whites who had joined with him, a building was
completed. This was the beginning of Methodists in the
town. Hither came Bishop Francis Asbury in 1807 and
preached twice in one day. On the same day, John Charles,
a colored preacher, preached at sunrise. The feeling of
friendship for him seems to have been great and the good
Bishop writes in his journal that it was "a high day on
Mount Zion." The attitude of the community was not
always tolerant of this "negro church." There were vari-
ous disturbances, and once the building was wrecked by
a mob.1

More striking, but not so typical, is the story of the plant-
ing of Methodism in Fayetteville. Late in the eighteenth
century, Fayetteville had but one church organization, the
Presbyterian, and that had no building. One day there
arrived in town Henry Evans, a full-blooded free negro from
Virginia, who was moving to Charleston, S. C, where he
proposed to follow the trade of shoemaking. He was perhaps
free born ; he was a Methodist and a licensed local preacher.
In Fayetteville he observed that the colored people "were
wholly given to profanity and lewdness, never hearing
preaching of any denomination." He felt it his duty to stop
and work among them. He worked at his trade during the
week and preached on Sunday. The whites became alarmed
and the Town Council ordered him to stop preaching. He
then met his flock in the "sand hills," desolate places out-
side of the jurisdiction of the Town Council. Fearing vio-
lence he made his meetings secret and changed the place of
meeting from Sunday to Sunday. He was particular to
violate no law, and to all the whites he showed the respect
which their sense of caste superiority demanded. Public

1See " Early Methodism in Wilmington," by Dr. A. M. Chreitz-
berg, in the Annual Publication of the Historical Society of the N. C.
Conference, 1897, p. 1; also Wightman: "Life of Bishop Capers,"
P- 136.

58 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [374

opinion began to change, especially when it was noticed that
slaves who had come under his influence were more docile
for it. Some prominent whites, most of whom were women,
became interested in his cause. They attended his meet-
ings and through their influence public opinion was
reversed. Then a rude frame building was erected within
the town limits and a number of seats were reserved for the
whites, some of whom became regular attendants at his
services. The preacher's reputation spread. The white
portion of the congregation increased till the negroes were
crowded out of their seats. Then the boards were knocked
from the sides of the house and sheds were built on either
hand and in these the blacks were seated. By this time the
congregation, which had been unconnectional at first, had
been taken into the regular Methodist connection and a reg-
ular white preacher had been sent to it. But the heroic
founder was not displaced. A room was built for him in
the rear of the pulpit and there he lived till his death in
1810.

Of Henry Evans, Bishop Capers said : "I have known
not many preachers who appeared more conversant with
the Scriptures than Evans, or whose conversation was more
instructive as to the things of God. He seemed always deeply
impressed with the responsibility of his position * * "
nor would he allow any partiality of friends to induce him
to vary in the least degree from the lines of conduct or the
bearing which he had prescribed to himself in this respect ;
never speaking to a white man but with his hat under his
arm, never allowing himself to be seated in their houses and
even confining himself to the kind and manner of dress
proper for slaves in general, except his plain black coat in
the pulpit. 'The whites are kind and come to hear me
preach,' he would say, 'but I belong to my own sort and
must not spoil them.' " Rare self-control before the most
wretched of castes ! Henry Evans did much good, but he
would have done more good had his spirit been untram-
meled by this sense of inferiority.

375] Religions Life. 59

His last speech to his people is noteworthy. Directly
after the morning sermon for the whites it was customary
to have a sermon for the blacks. On the Sunday before
Evans' death, as the latter meeting was being held the door
of his little shed room opened and he tottered forward.
Leaning on the altar rail he said : "I have come to say my
last word to you. It is this : None but Christ. Three
times I have had my life in jeopardy for preaching the
gospel to you. Three times I have broken the ice on the
edge of the water and swam across the Cape Fear to preach
the gospel to you, and if in my last hour I could trust to
that, or anything but Christ crucified, for my salvation, all
should be lost and my soul perish forever." Of these words
Bishop Capers justly says that they were worthy of St.
Paul.1

The opposition that was encountered in Fayetteville and
in Wilmington had been due to the more active abolition
turn of the Church in the North. In 1785 Dr. Coke arrived
in America on a visit to the Church. He preached aboli-
tion and gave it an impetus among the Methodists which
resulted in memorials and remonstrances to the Legisla-
ture. Before this the large slave-owners had encouraged
preaching to their slaves.2 They now became fearful that
the slaves would be incited to violence, and generally in the
South, Methodist ministers were forbidden access to the
slaves. It took some time to live down this unfavorable
impression and it was only when it was seen that the South-
ern preachers did not approve of the interference with the
agitation against negro slavery that public sentiment came
around. There was the most urgent need for such preach-
ing. Of the negroes around Wilmington, Bishop Capers
says : "A numerous population of this class in that town
and vicinity were as destitute of any public instruction (or,
probably, instruction of any kind as to spiritual things) as
if they had not been believed to be men at all, and their

1 Wightman: " Life of Bishop Capers," pp. 124-129.
2 Drew: "Life of Dr. Coke," pp. 132-139.

60 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [376

morals were as depraved as, with such a destitution of the
gospel among them, might have been expected." To this
state of things the masters were indifferent; for, adds the
Bishop, "it seems not to have been considered that such a
state of things might furnish motives sufficient to induce
pure-minded men to engage, at great inconvenience or even
personal hazard, in the work of reforming them. Such
work, on the other hand, seems to have been regarded as
Unnecessary, if not unreasonable. Conscience was not
believed to be concerned in it. "* And yet when conveyed
the negroes made good Christians. Says the same author-
ity : "I believe I have never served a more Christian-hearted
people." The preacher had a great influence over them.
Church trials were rare among them and the numbers
increased constantly. They were faithful in giving to the
church. The pastor's salary at Wilmington was derived
almost wholly from their scant resources ; for the few white
members were very poor. They were attached to their
preacher, as many a pound cake or warm pair of knit socks
or gloves from their hands testified.

Sometimes a congregation outgrew in dignity the hum-
bler persons who had at first constituted its chief elements.
Such was the case at Raleigh. Here there were at first a
large number of colored members, and when the church
building was erected they contributed their part. They were
given seats in the gallery. At length there was an oppor-
tunity to buy a church which might be turned over solely
to the negroes. Both whites and blacks worked with their
might to get the necessary money. When it was at length
secured, there was a two-fold rejoicing; by the negroes
because they had a building of their own, by the whites
because the negroes were out of the white man's church.
This negro church now became a mission and a white
preacher was assigned to it by the Conference. Usually
an old preacher of kind disposition and good judgment was
sent to them. They were still under the oversight of the white

1Wightman: "Life of Bishop Capers," p. 163.

377] Religious Life. 61

congregation from which they drew for Sunday school
teachers and other church workers.

The Baptists were early in North Carolina, but until the
establishment of the Missionary Baptist Church in 1830
they were hardly as zealous for converting the unsaved as
later. I have not found evidence that they began by work-
ing up congregations among the slaves as did the Meth-
odists in some places, but from the first they took great
care to bring under religious influence the slaves of their
own members and through these the negroes generally
came to be reached at length. The records of Sandy Run
Church, in Bertie County, as early as 1773, show that there
were negro preachers for the negro members, and that these
were instructed not to hold services at the time of the regular
meeting of the whole church, at which it was designed that
the slaves might also be present. Both colored preachers
and colored members were under the control of the white
congregation. They had no voice in general church affairs,
but would be heard in church meeting in cases which
related to their own race. There were in some eastern sec-
tions colored deacons who were given charge of the colored
members and who made report from time to time to the
church meeting.1

It has been found impossible to get an estimate of the
number of negroes in the Baptist Church in North Carolina.
Here the congregational idea was strong, the reports to the
associations were not very full and do not always show the
number of members. In 1830 the Baptist State Conven-
tion was formed, and from that time the minutes are pub-
lished for the Missionary Baptist Church in North Carolina,
but in the few years for which the number of members are
reported, there is no distinction made between blacks and
whites. It is only in the Chowan Association that I have
had a glimpse of numbers. Here there were in 1843, 4575
white to 1228 black members; in 1844, 3241 whites to

xFor many of the facts here presented I am indebted to Dr. J. D.
Huffham, of Henderson, N. C.

62 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [378

1160 blacks; in 1848, 4619 whites to 1541 blacks; in 1850,
4668 whites to 1476 blacks ; in 1855, 6960 whites to 2545
blacks, and in i860, 7539 whites to 3043 blacks. This pro-
portion was strong, but it must be remembered that the
Chowan Association lay in the East, and that it was in a
region which was strong in Baptist faith. It was not repre-
sentative of the denomination on this question.

The care of the Church over the life of the slave was com-
mendably faithful, especially over the relation of master and
slave. As early as 1778 it was decided that a marriage
between slaves ought to be respected, even though it was
against the law of the land, and that any member who broke
the marriage vows of servants ought to be denied fellow-
ship.1 In 1783 it was declared by a meeting in the Sandy
Creek Association that a master should give his servants
liberty to attend family prayers in his house, that he should
exhort them to attend, but not use force.2 How this duty
was fulfilled may be seen from the memoir of Capt. John
Freeman, a prominent Baptist of Chowan County, who
died in 1794. It is said of him that although he had many
slaves "his lenity towards them was very remarkable. If
any of them transgressed, his general method to chastise
them was to expose their faults before the rest of the ser-
vants and the whole family when they were at family wor-
ship in the morning, who, when assembled at morning
prayer, would talk to< them, exhort and rebuke them so
sharply for their faults that he made others fear. * * *
He was so very affected for the spiritual welfare of his fam-
ily that often he seemed almost convulsed, and this extraor-
dinary zeal was not the impulse of a moment, but his con-
stant practice for seventeen years."3

The above statements apply to the Baptist body before
the separation of the Missionary Baptists from it. For a
view of the attitude of the latter toward slavery, the best

1 Biggs: " History of Kehuckee Association," p. 47.
2Purefoy: "History of Sandy Creek Association," p. 60.
sBiggs: "History of the Kehuckee Association," pp. 95-96.

379] Religious Life. 63

source at hand is Purefoy's "History of the Sandy Creek
Association." Here it is seen that the question of a valid
marriage between blacks was still unsettled. The Associa-
tion was asked in 1805 to settle it.1 After three years' post-
ponement it was answered that such a marriage should he
valid, ''when they come together in their former and general
custom, having no [other] companion." Rev. Purefoy,
commenting on this, says2 owners should endeavor to keep
married slaves from being separated, even if they put them-
selves to some inconvenience in buying, selling, or exchang-
ing them.

To the buying and selling of slaves for profit Baptists in
both East and West were opposed. In 181 8 the Chowan
Association was asked if a Christian could consistently
buy slaves in order to sell them to speculators. The answer
was clear : "We believe that such practice is at war with the
spirit of the gospel and shocking to all the tender feelings
of our nature. We answer No."3 In 1835 Sandy Creek
Association spoke still more emphatically. It said :
"Whereas, We believe it inconsistent with the spirit of the
gospel of Christ for a Christian to buy or sell negroes for the
purpose of speculation or merchandise for gain. Resolved,
therefore, that this association advise the churches of which
it is composed to exclude members who will not abandon
the practice after the first and second admonition."4 When
in 1847 tne Association was asked if it was agreeable to the
gospe1 for Baptists to buy and sell human beings or to keep
them in bondage for life, the only answer vouchsafed was
to refer the interrogators to the minutes of 1835. The
slavery dispute was then well-nigh in its stage of highest
passion, and it is not unlikely that the Church authorities
did not like to take a more definite position on either the
first or second part of the query.

'Purefoy: "History of Sandy Creek Association," p. 76.
*3id., pp. 93-94-

3 "Minutes of the Chowan Baptist Association," 1818, p. 7.
4Purefoy: " Sandy Creek Association," pp. 163-164.

64 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [380

The Baptists, like the Methodists, early in the century had
negro preachers, most notable of whom was Ralph Free-
man. Ralph was a slave in Anson County in the neighbor-
hood of Rock River Church. Soon after his conversion he
felt an impulse to preach, and early in this century he was
licensed by his church for that purpose. Soon afterwards
he was ordained to the regular ministry. He did not have
specific charges, but traveled and preached through his own
and the adjoining counties. Says Rev. Purefoy : "He
became a good reader and was well versed in the Scripture.
He was considered an able preacher and was frequently
called upon to preach on funeral occasions, and was
appointed to preach on Sabbath at Association, and fre-
quently administered the ordinance of baptism and the
Lord's Supper. He was of common size, was perfectly
black, with a smiling countenance, especially in the pulpit
while speaking. He was very humble in his appearance at
all times, and especially when conducting religious services.
Great personal respect was also shown him by the brethren
whom he visited in his preaching excursions." Rev. Joseph
Magee, a white Baptist minister, became much attached to
Ralph. They used to travel and preach together and after
the fashion of the times it was agreed between them that the
survivor should preach the funeral sermon of the one who
died first. This task fell to Ralph. Although his friend
had moved to the West, the colored preacher was sent for all
the way from North Carolina to come and fulfil the promise
made years earlier. Ralph complied with great success and
before a large audience. When the Baptists divided on the
question of missions, Ralph sided with the anti-mission
party, and so fell into disfavor with the others. This he
regretted, but a greater blow, which also fell about the same
time, was the statute which forbade negroes to preach. He
was greatly mortified, but submitted, and with that passes
from our notice.

In proportion to their strength the Quakers did more for
the negroes than any other religious body in North Caro-

'

381] Religious Life. 65

lina. They did not have very many colored members, but
before the Revolution they set themselves to free those they
did have ; and they did not stop until the process was
accomplished. The Yearly Meeting of the very first year
of the war, 1776, appointed a committee to go about and aid
Friends to free their slaves. This committee was expected
to act in co-operation with the various monthly meetings.
Thus a considerable number were liberated in the following
year. The committee reported that they found among the
Friends a great willingness to forward the work. But they
had acted contrary to the law of emancipation which
required that slaves should be freed for meritorious conduct
only. Forty of those thus emancipated were taken up and
sold into slavery again. The Quakers complained that this
was done under a law passed in 1777, after the slaves were
liberated. At considerable expense they fought the matter
through County and Superior Courts and won the verdict ;
but the Assembly was then appealed to and in 1779 it passed
a law confirming the sales of these negroes and directing
that all other negroes similarly freed should be sold into
slavery in the same manner as if they had been freed after
the passage of the law of 1777. The reason for this extra-
ordinary procedure was no doubt the law of 1741, which
was held to be still in force. The Friends, however, were
not satined. They appealed to the Assembly. They based
their theory on the principle "that no law, moral or divine,
has given us a right to, or property in, any of our fellovv
creatures any longer than they are in a state of minority."
They appealed to the statement of the rights of man in the
Declaration of Independence, and showed that the sale of
the negroes in question was in opposition to the spirit of the
North Carolina Bill of Rights, which forbade the passage
of ex post facto laws. This petition was signed by the
eleven men who had owned the slaves in question and was
sent to the Assembly, but on the advice of persons friendly
5

66 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [382

to the Quakers it was not presented.1 This did not deter
the Friends from further petitions. One was sent in 1787,
another in 1788, and another in 1789. The petitions were
about various matters, but none of them amounted to any-
thing. In 1792 they petitioned again, asking the repeal of
the law restricting emancipation, and demanding that it
"never again disgrace the annals of a Christian people." The
petition failed, but they did not cease to send others in the
years following. In 1817 they asked the Legislature to
take joint action with Congress for the colonization of the
free negroes. The petition failed, and the next year they
voted $1000 to the American Colonization Society. For
some time there seems to have been no further connection
with this society.

The instruction of the slaves in religious and educational
matters aroused the energies of the Quakers. They became
awakened in this matter in 1780, when it seems that but little
had been done. In 1787 it was asserted that one of the two
leading objects of their activities toward the negro was to
care for, protect, and instruct the freed negroes. The
immediate result of this interest does not appear; but in
181 5 Friends were exhorted by the Yearly Meeting to pre-
pare schools for the literary and religious instruction of
the negroes,2 and in 1816 a school for negroes was opened
for two days in each week. Some progress was made, as
may be seen by the reports. Most of the negroes in the West-
ern Quarter who were minors had been put in a way to get ' Ja
portion of school learning." The Quarter recommended that
males be taught to "read, write and cipher as far as the Rule
of Three," and that females be taught to read and write
merely.3 In 1821, Levi Coffin and his cousin, Vestal, opened

'A chief source of facts relating to the Quakers and Slavery has
been "A Narrative of Some of the Proceedings of the North Carolina
Yearly Meeting on the subject of Slavery within its Limits." (See
"Slavery and Servitude," p. 50, note 1.)

2 Quaker pamphlet cited above, p. 24.

zIbid., p. 24. See also Weeks: "Southern Quakers and Slavery,"
p. 231.

383] Religious Life. 67

a Sunday school for the blacks at New Garden and began to
teach some slaves to spell ; but when they could spell words
of two or three letters they were withdrawn by their masters.
The former attempt must have been as unsatisfactory as that
of the Coffins, since the standing committee of the Quakers
reported in 1821 that they could find no way to' educate col-
ored children except in the families of Friends. Either in
this way or otherwise some progress was undoubtedly
made, as appears from the reports sent in to the Yearly
Meeting. When the Assembly passed the law forbidding
slaves to be taught to read and write the Quakers petitioned
for its repeal, and they also asked for the repeal of the law
forbidding colored persons to preach. They said : "We
consider these laws unrighteous and contrary to the spirit
of Christianity, offensive to God ; and your memorialists
believe, if not repealed, they will increase the difficulties and
dangers they are intended to prevent."1 Furthermore, they
asked for the enactment of a law to instruct slaves in reli-
gion and in reading, so that they could read the Bible.

To accomplish the liberation of slaves in the face of the
laws they had recourse to corporate ownership. In 1808
a committee was appointed on the state of the people of
color, and its recommendation, which was adopted, was
that certain trustees should be appointed to whom should be
conveyed the slaves whom it was desired to emancipate.
These slaves were to be held in nominal bondage, but the
trustees were to retain only so much power over them as
should be for the good of the slaves' conduct. Thus an
idle negro might be coerced moderately. The Friends took
this step on the advice of Judge William Gaston, who was
always a friend of freedom and of the slave. At first some
Friends opposed the project, but they gradually changed
their views and the custom continued in force until the Civil
War. As soon as this plan was in operation, slaves began
to disappear from among the Quakers. Many of them

xSee Quaker pamphlet cited, p. 34.

68 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [384

were sent out of the State — either to free territory in the
United States or to Africa or to the West Indies. A few
could be freed by the consent of the County Courts. A
considerable number, especially those who were connected
by family bonds with the slaves of persons not Quakers, as
well as old persons who were not fit to begin a new life in
a new place, were retained in the hands of the trustees.
The general result of this relation, however, was to move
the negroes out of the State ; and this was no doubt due
partly to the legal aspects of the case as seen in the decision
in the Contentnea Society vs. Dickinson, to which reference
has already been made.1 This decision might well convince
the Quakers that they could not hope to make society own-
ership a permanent feature and they used more and more
the practice of sending the slaves away. Another induce-
ment to send the slaves away, and an earlier one, was the
liability of having them become a charge on the society.
It is with evident feelings of relief that the agents of the
Eastern Quarter in 1820 reported that the four hundred
slaves who were owned by the Yearly Meeting had been
managed so as to avoid expense, except for sending some
away. In 1822 the number in hand was four hundred and
fifty and the Yearly Meeting ordered that the trustees
should receive no slaves except from Quakers. It was for
this reason that a committee was appointed to examine the
laws of the free States to see if negroes might be sent
thither. In 1823 this committee made its report in favor of
Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, and steps were taken to remove
the slaves as rapidly as possible, and $200 was voted to
defray the expenses. They were sent to Pennsylvania, to
the Northwest, to Hayti, and, perhaps, to Liberia. Six hun-
dred and fifty-two had gone by 1830 and four hundred and
two were still under care. The expense of moving so many
had reached $12,769.50, not all of which had been borne
by the North Carolina Friends, for in 1829 the Rhode

1 See Quaker pamphlet cited, p. 32. Although this decision was
not given till 1827, the case was begun earlier than 1822.

385] Religious Life. 69

Island Yearly Meeting had contributed to the work
$1351.50. Sometimes the negroes themselves paid part of
the expense of removal by being hired out for wages, the
surplus earnings being saved for this purpose. But the
Friends were not ungenerous in this matter. On one
occasion four women had promised to go and leave their
husbands in slavery. At the last moment they refused to
go, and the Friends bought the husbands at an expense of
$1400 and sent them along with the faithful wives. The
owners of the husbands were here equally benevolent, for
they sold them at half their value. The last important
removal was in 1836, when fifty-seven persons were sent
to the Northwest and two hundred were left in the possession
of the society. Many of these were old people and children.
Death rapidly thinned the one class, and the members of
the other were sent away as they became grown. In 1848
the number was about twelve, and it was said by the Com-
mittee on Sufferings : "It is believed that there is no instance
of any [slaves] being held among us so as to deprive them
of the benefit of their labor."1 In 1856 there were eighteen
still under care.

The work of the Quakers was not easy. "Such," says the
narrative of the Committee on Sufferings, from which I have
already taken so much, "it would appear was the prejudice
against freeing the slaves, the danger of their being carried
off and sold in distant parts, the ignominy of their situation ;
that there was no way but to remove them to the free gov-
ernments as fast as their circumstances would permit."
Many Quakers and other persons moved from North Caro-
lina to the Northwest, and the Friends often sent slaves
whom they desired to free along with these emigrants.
Sometimes a large number would be sent, and trusted
Quakers would go along with them with authority to
effect emancipation. Sometimes a ship would be chartered,
as when the negroes wanted to go to the West Indies.

1 Quaker pamphlet cited, p. 40.

70 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [386

To the Quakers must be given, also, much of the credit
for the organization of the North Carolina Manumission
Society. This society existed in the region around Greens-
boro, where the non-slaveholding element was strong. It
had members who were not Quakers, but it had many, per-
haps a majority, who were of that faith. This society had
many branches and its inception was doubtless due to the
efforts of Charles Osborn, a Quaker minister, who organ-
ized various branches in Guilford County in 1816. In the
same year these branches were organized into a general
society, and in the following year this society agreed to
act in connection with the American Colonization Society.
To this move there was, however, much opposition, mostly
from the Quaker members. These were largely abolition-
ists and they looked upon colonization as an aid to slavery.
The minority seceded and continued to meet at New Garden
till most of them had moved to the West. The society,
however, continued to grow. In 1821, Benjamin Lundy
appeared in North Carolina and made anti-slavery speeches
in Guilford and Randolph Counties. He came from Ten-
nessee, where Elihu Embree had already inaugurated a
promising anti-slavery movement.1 In 1824 the term
"Colonization" was dropped from the name of the society.
In 1825 there were thirty-three local societies2 with a total
of more than 1000 members. In 1827 there were forty
branches ; but this was the flood-tide of the movement.
Public sentiment was turning against the cause of the aboli-
tionists, as has been already seen. In 1834 the society had
its last meeting. Of those who had been leaders many had
emigrated. Many of the rank and file had either gone
away or been frightened by the greater vehemence of the
pro-slavery advocates. Whatever of vitality it had left
seems to have been thrown into support of the Under-

JHoss: "Sketch of Elihu Embree." Publication of Vanderbilt
Southern History Association, No. 2, 1897.

2 Weeks says thirty-six, but names only thirty-three. "Southern
Quakers," p. 240.

387] Religious Life. 71

ground Railway. It became in its later days emphatically
abolitionist. It advised its members to subscribe for
Lundy's paper, and in 1830 it passed resolutions in support
of William Lloyd Garrison.1

The Presbyterian Church of North Carolina had never so
large a proportion of negro members as the Methodist or
Baptist Churches, but it opened its doors as freely to the
slaves. These were given special seats and admitted to the
sacrament of the communion after the whites. That many of
them became faithful and obedient Christians there can be
no doubt. Rev. J. D. Mitchell, a Presbyterian pastor of
Lynchburg, Va., said in 1858, after twenty-seven years in the
pastorate : "Our colored members have exhibited a uniform
consistency of moral and religious character. In my long
pastorate I remember only three cases of discipline among
the servants. * * * Instances of high-toned piety are
frequent among them."2 The Southern Presbyterian bore
evidence that the Bible was often read in the churches where
there were negroes, especially the parts dealing with the
duties of master and slaves. The reading of the Bible, it
thought, was not necessary to getting to heaven, and if
slaves were taught to read they would read incendiary liter-
erature more than the Bible. "There are more pious per-
sons among the blacks," it added, "than among any sim-
ilar class of people in the world."3 It is likely that the atti-
tude of this Church in North Carolina did not differ materi-
ally from the spirit of these utterances.

At first the Church was not hostile to emancipation in
the abstract, but it was not inclined to wholesale abolition in
actual practice. In 1787 the Synod of New York and Phila-
delphia declared that it highly approved of universal liberty
and of "the interest which many States had taken in pro-
moting the abolition of slavery ;" but since indolent and

'See "North Carolina Manumission Society," by C. C. Weaver,
Trinity College (N. C.) Historical Papers, series 1, p. 71.
2 Quoted in De Bow's Review, vol. 24, pp. 277 and 279.
* Ibid., vol. 18, p. 52.

72 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [388

ignorant persons would be a disadvantage in a community,
it urged that slaves be educated, that they be encour-
aged to buy themselves, and that members use all efforts to
secure abolition of slavery.1 In 1795 the question of fellow-
ship with slaveholders was up, but elicited nothing but an
injunction to brotherly love and charity. The same
body in 181 5 urged members to give religious education to
the slaves, so that they might be fit for freedom when God
might "open the door for their emancipation." At the
same time it declared that trading in slaves and cruelty
toward them were contrary to the spirit of Christ. The
split between the Northern and Southern wings of the
Church was already in sight, although it did not proceed
so rapidly as among the Methodists. In 1818 the General
Assembly endorsed abolition in the abstract and expressed
sympathy for the South where most of the virtuous people
were thought to be for emancipation. It urged such peo-
ple to continue their efforts and exhorted others not to make
"uncharitable reflection on their brethren, who unhappily
live among slaves whom they "cannot immediately set free."
It also spoke decidedly against the separation of slave fam-
ilies by sale. Any church member who would do this
ought to be suspended from fellowship, "unless there be
such peculiar circumstances attending the case as can but
seldom happen."2 For some time after this the question
was not brought up ; but in 1835 it would be ignored no
longer. A committee was appointed on the matter, and
the next year it reported that slavery was a civil question
and ought not to be considered by the Assembly. After
some debate the matter was indefinitely postponed. But it
was up again in 1845, when it was resolved that "since
Christ and his inspired Apostles did not make the holding
of slaves a bar to communion, we, as a Court of Christ, have
no authority to do so ; since they did not attempt to remove

J See " Presbyterianism and Slavery," an official document pub-
lished for the use of the General Assembly in 1836.
2 Ibid., pp. 6-8.

389] Religious Life. 73

it from the Church by legislation, we have no authority to
legislate on that subject." The progress of the slaves could
not be obtained by ecclesiastical legislation or by "indis-
criminate denunciations against slaveholders, without
regard to their character or circumstances."' The resolu-
tion passed by 168 to 13 votes.1 By such action this con-
servative Church put off its division till the war was actually
at hand. This relation of the general Church to slavery
must have influenced the attitude of the local Church. It
no doubt kept up a conservative and abiding interest in the
welfare of the slave on the part of the Church authorities.
What Henry Evans was in the Methodist Church and
Ralph Freeman in the Baptist, John Chavis was in the
Presbyterian Church. In native ability he was no doubt
equal to either of the other two, but in education he was
superior to them. He was, probably, born in Granville
County, near Oxford, about 1763. He was a full-blooded
negro of dark brown color. He was born free. In
early life he attracted the attention of the whites, and he was
sent to Princeton College to see if a negro would take a
collegiate education. He was a private pupil under the
famous Dr. Witherspoon, and- his ready acquisition of
knowledge soon convinced his friends that the experiment
would issue favorably. After leaving Princeton he went to
Virginia, sent thither, no doubt, to preach to the negroes.
In 1801 he was at the Hanover (Virginia) Presbytery, "rid-
ing as a missionary under the direction of the General
Assembly." In 1805, at the suggestion of Rev. Henry
Patillo, of North Carolina, he returned to his native State.
For some cause, I know not what, it was not till 1809 that
he was received as a licentiate by the Orange Presbytery.
Although he preached frequently to the regular congrega-
tions at Nutbush, Shiloh, Island Creek, and other churches
in the neighborhood, I do not find that he was called to a
church as pastor. Mr. George Wortham, a lawyer of Gran-
tee "American Slavery as Viewed and Acted on by the Presby-
terian Church in America," by Rev, A. T. McGill, 1865.

74 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [390

ville County, said in 1883 : "I have heard him read and ex-
plain the Scriptures to my father's family repeatedly. His
English was remarkably pure, containing no 'negroisms;'
his manner was impressive, his explanations clear and con-
cise, and his views, as I then thought and still think, entirely
orthodox. He was said to have been an acceptable preacher,
his sermons abounding in strong common sense views and
happy illustrations, without any efforts at oratory or sensa-
tional appeals to the passions of his hearers. He had certainly
read God's Word much and meditated deeply on it. He had
a small but select library of theological works, in which were
to be found the works of Flavel, Buxton, Boston, and others.
I have now two volumes of "Dwight's Theology," which
were formerly in his possession. He was said by his old
pupils to have been a good Latin and a fair Greek scholar. He
was a man of intelligence on general subjects and conversed
well." He continued to preach till in 1831 the Legislature
forbade negroes to preach. It was a trial to him and he
appealed to the Presbytery. That body could do nothing
more than recommend him "to acquiesce in the decision of
the Legislature referred to, until God in his providence shall
open to him a path of duty in regard to the exercise of his
ministry." Acquiesce he did. He died in 1838 and the
Presbytery continued to his widow the pension which it had
formerly allowed to him.

Mr. Chavis' most important work was educational.
Shortly after his return to North Carolina he opened a class-
ical school, teaching in Granville, Wake, and Chatham
Counties. His school was for the patronage of the whites.
Among his patrons were the best people of the neighbor-
hood. Among' his pupils were Willie P. Mangum, after-
wards United States Senator, and Priestley H. Mangum, his
brother, Archibald and John Henderson, sons of Chief Jus-
tice Henderson, Charles Manly, afterwards Governor of the
State, Dr. James L. Wortham of Oxford, N. C, and many
more excellent men who did not become so distinguished
in their communities. Rev. James H. Horner, one of the

391] Religious Life. 75

best teachers of high schools the State has produced, said
of John Clavis : "My father not only went to school to
him but boarded in his family * * * The school was
the best at that time to be found in the State."

All accounts agree that John Chavis was a gentleman.
Mr. Paul C. Cameron, a son of Judge Duncan Cameron,
and a prominent man in Orange County, said : "In my
boyhood life at my father's home I often saw John
Chavis, a venerable old negro man, recognized as a
freeman and as a preacher or clergyman of the Presby-
terian Church. As such he was received by my father
and treated with kindness and consideration, and respected
as a man of education, good sense, and most estimable
character. * * * He seemed familiar with the pro-
prieties of social life, yet modest and unassuming, and
sober in his language and opinions. He was polite — yes,
courtly; but it was from his heart and not affected. I
remember him as a man without guile. His conversation
indicated that he lived free from all evil or suspicion, seeking
the good opinion of the public by the simplicity of his life
and the integrity of his conduct. If he had any vanity he
most successfully concealed it. * * * I write of him as
I remember him and as he was appreciated by my superiors,
whose respect he enjoyed." The same gentleman adds that
the slaves were amazed to see a negro receive so much
respect from the whites. Others have confirmed Mr. Cam-
eron's statement.1 From a source of the greatest respecta-
bility I have learned that this negro was received as an
equal socially and asked to table by the most respecta-
ble people of the neighborhood. Such was the position of
the best specimen of the negro race in North Carolina in
the days before race prejudices were aroused. It goes with-
out saying that such a negro would not receive the same

2The facts here given were collected by Dr. Charles Phillips, of the
University of North Carolina, and used by Dr. C. L. Smith for the
short sketch of John Chavis, which he included in his "History of
Education in North Carolina," Washington, D. C, 1888, pp. 138-140.

76 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [392

treatment to-day. That such is true is due to that strenuous
state of feeling which preceded and followed forcible eman-
cipation. So much the cause of humanity would have gained
could slavery have been removed by reason !

In 1830 John Clavis, described as an educated colored
Presbyterian preacher, was teaching a school for free col-
ored children in Raleigh. Joseph Gales attended a public
examination at this school in April, 1830, and said in his
paper: "It was an example, both in behavior and scholar-
ship which their white superiors might take pride in imitat-
ing." He complimented a speech in which Chavistold his
pupils that they possessed but an humble station in life ;
but that even they could make themselves useful.1

The Protestant Episcopal Church was not indifferent to
the spiritual welfare of the slaves, although it had not so
many slave members as some other churches. The pro-
portion is indicated for 1857, as follows : Communicants,
white 2341, colored 345; and catechumens (Sunday School
pupils), white 1105 and colored 488. In 1858 it was: Com-
municants, white 2364 and colored 353 ; and catechumens,
white 943 and colored 351. I have been unable to find full
statistics for the whole time, but the above figures show the
proportions for the years when this church probably had
its largest number of members.

Here the members must have been mostly house servants,
since the Episcopalians were largely slaveholders, and the
2364 communicants must have owned many thousands of
slaves. Usually the colored people occupied the seats reserved
for the slaves, as in other churches. Sometimes there were
special missions for the slaves. Capt. T. W. Battle, of Edg-
combe County, had one, but discontinued it after a year
because the slaves took no interest in it. Mr. Josiah Collins
and Rev. W. S. Pettigrew had similar enterprises in Wash-
ington County, and there seems to have been one in connec-
tion with the church at Tarborough.2

1 Raleigh Register, April 19, 1830.

2 For facts here mentioned I am indebted to Dr. K. P. Battle of the
University of North Carolina.

CHAPTER IV.

INDUSTRIAL AND SOCIAL RELATIONS OF
SLAVERY.

Population. — At the outbreak of the Revolution there were
by the most probable estimate 36,000 colored people in
North Carolina.1 From then till 1790 no facts for an esti-
mate have come under my observation. From the latter
date till i860 the numbers of whites, free negroes and slaves,
as included in the census tables, were as follows :

Year.

Whites.

Increase.
PerCent.

Free
Colored.

Increase.
PerCent.

Slaves.

Increase.
PerCent.

Total.

1790

288,204

4,975

100,572

393,751

l800

337,764

17.19

7,043

41.56

133,296

32.53

478,103

l8lO

376,410

II.44

10,266

45-76

168,824

26.65

555,500

1820

419,200

II.36

14,612

42.33

205,017

21-43

638,829

1830

472,823

12.79

19,534

33-74

245,601

19.79

737,987

184O

484,870

2-54

22,732

16.31

245,817

.08

753,419

I8.SO

553,028

14.05

27,463

20.81

288,548

17-38

869,039

i860

629,942

14.42

30,463

IO.92

331,059

14-73

992,622

From this table it is seen that the increase of the whites
was slow, being normal at about 13^ per cent., a rate
decidedly slower than that maintaining since the war. This
slow increase is no doubt due largely to emigration which
took off many of the non-slaveholding farmers to the
Northwest and many of the slaveholders to the far South.
The latter movement was strongest from 1800 to 1840; the
former from 1830 to i860. Where the two overlapped,
from 1830 to 1840, the population was well-nigh stationary.

1 See " Slavery and .Servitude in North Carolina," p. 22.

77

78 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [394

The number of free negroes depended on the number of
emancipations plus the natural increase in the free negro
families. Emancipation was considerably practiced till 1820.
After that the laws grew harder on free negroes. Many of
them left the State, and thus the increase was reduced.
During the last decade of slavery this increase was smaller
than ever before, and had slavery endured till 1870 it would,
no doubt, have been well-nigh nothing.

Of the slave population the greatest increase was from
1790 to 1800, when the slave trade was still allowed, but
after this source of increase had been destroyed there is a
decided falling off. The remarkable drop from 1830 to 1840
has sometimes been attributed to an erroneous census. If the
claim be true then it is still true that the increase was very
small, since from 1830 to 1850 it was only 17.48 per cent.
In the days when many whites moved to Georgia and Ala-
bama, and other cotton States, there must have been a con-
siderable drain on the numbers of the slave population.
But later on when the great demand for slaves in these States
had raised the price paid for them a great many more were
sent. This probably accounts for the slow increase in the
census tables after 1830.

There were 34,658 slaveholders in North Carolina in
i860, and these owned in all 331,059 slaves, or an average of
9.6 to each owner. In Virginia there were 9.4 slaves to
each owner, and in South Carolina there were 15. For
North Carolina there had been from 1850 till i860 a lessen-
ing of the number of slaves to an owner, since it was in 1850
10. 1 slaves to each owner.

Distribution. — In the colonial period the eastern counties
had most of the slaves ; but throughout the period of state-
hood the West acquired continually more of them. It never
had as many as the East, but along the upland rivers, and
wherever in the West. there was fertile land, there the large
slave-tended farm was found. This was true of the upper
Roanoke section of the Yadkin, and of other river sections.
In 1790 there! were in ther western counties 30,068 slaves

395] Industrial and Social Relations of Slavery. 79

and in the East 70,504. In i860 the same western counties
had 146,463 slaves and the eastern 184,596. In the West
the ratio of increase in seventy years was 387 per cent.,
while in the East it was 161 per cent. In 1790 there were in
the same western counties 136,655 whites, and in i860 the
number was 385,724. In 1790 the same eastern counties
had 151,549 whites, and in i860 they had 244,218. Thus it
will be seen that for these seven decades the ratio for the
increase of the whites in the West was 182 per cent., and for
those in the East it was 61 per cent.1 Plainly enough the
West was gaining rapidly on the East in regard to slave
population. This was partly due to the extension of the
area of cotton cultivation. Counties like Mecklenberg,
Anson and Union were properly under the influence of the
western ideas and life in 1790; but in i860 they were great
cotton counties and largely slaveholding. Moreover, in
other western counties, which by 1800 were past the pioneer
stage, there grew up continually numerous wealthy families.
They owned slaves. The slaves competed with the small
white farmers. Thus there began slowly that process by
which slavery always eats out all the life of a free yeomanry.
The small farmers sold their farms and moved to the
Northwest, the slaveholders bought the farms and consoli-
dated landholding. Had slavery continued till the present
time some wonderful changes would have taken place in this
part of the State. There is every reason to believe that
besides the tobacco industry, which might profitably have
been conducted here, this would have become, along with
parts of Virginia, a notable breeding ground for slaves to be
sent southward.

The progress of the slave population in the State could
not have been due in any considerable extent to importa-

1 Of course the selection of a dividing line between the East and the
West is a matter more or less arbitrary, but the change of a dozen
counties along this line, where white and black populations remained
relatively constant, would make no appreciable difference in the
proportions given in the text.

80 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [396

tion. Before the final prohibition of the foreign slave trade
by Congress in 1808, there was a strong feeling against it
in North Carolina. In 1774 the Provincial Congress of the
colony resolved that they would not import or purchase
any slaves brought into the colony after November, 1774.1
This was part of the body of resolutions by the first Pro-
vincial Congress, and was due as much to the desire to
retaliate on Great Britain as to opposition to the slave
trade. How well this resolution was executed I am not
able to say ; but it was, no doubt, often violated ; for, in 1786
(chap. 5), the Assembly passed a law the preamble of which
ran: "Whereas, The importation of slaves into this State
is productive of evil consequences and highly impolitic."
In accordance with this patriotic sentiment 40 shillings was
to be levied on each imported slave under seven years old and
over forty, and £ 5 on those from seven to> twelve and from
thirty to forty years, and £10 en those from twelve
to thirty years. This duty was to be levied whether
the slaves were imported by land or by sea. This was
aimed avowedly at the slave trade, and exception was made
in favor of incoming settlers who brought slaves, and per-
sons who received foreign slaves by gift, marriage or inheri-
tance. Besides, a tax of £5 was to be collected on all
slaves imported directly from Africa. A further section pro-
hibited the introduction into the State of slaves from the
States which had then recently liberated their slaves, and
directed that those already so imported should be sent to
the places whence they came. The motives for making this
law I can know only inferentially. There seems to have
been behind it an honest desire to restrict the number of
slaves in North Carolina, and a purpose to protect domestic
slavery from the disquieting influence of the more unman-
ageable slaves from Africa and the West Indies.

The public opinion, however, soon changed, and the act

'"Colonial Records of North Carolina," IX, p. 1046. Also
"American Archives," 4th series, I, p. 735.

397J Industrial and Social Relations of Slavery. 81

was repealed in 1790. But almost immediately there
occurred an incident which secured the enactment of still
severer laws against the slave trade. I refer to the Haytien
outbreak, which occurred in 1791. These outrages, bad as
they were, were exaggerated in American minds and filled
Southern hearts with terror.1 In 1794 (chap. 2) a strict law
was passed forbidding the importation of slaves or indented
colored persons under a penalty of £ 100 fine. This law
did not forbid a person who came into the State to settle
to bring his slaves with him. A year later (Laws of 1795,
chap. 16) it was provided that this privilege should not
apply to persons coming from the West Indies, the Bahamas
and the "southern coast of America," if the imported
negroes were over fifteen years old.

The foreign slave trade was prohibited by Congress from
1808, and in the same year the North Carolina Assembly
repealed its law of 1794.2 The National Statute left the
disposition of the illegally imported slaves to the States in
which they should be taken up. The North Carolina
Assembly took up the matter in 1816 (chap. 12), and enacted
that such slaves should be sold by the sheriff for the use of
the State, one-fifth to go to the informer. This law
remained in force till the war.3 This National Statute could
not have been enforced very well, if at all, before 1816, for
the law of that year provided that slaves imported into the
State from abroad before 1816 and the descendants of the
same should not be sold according to this law, but that the
owners thereof should have legal titles made out and certi-
fied by the sheriffs. In view of this law and of the general
loose administration of the National Statute in the South,
it is safe to say that it was not always enforced in North
Carolina after 1816.

xSee Du Bois: " Suppression of the Slave Trade," pp. 72 and 73.
2 Laws of 1808, chap. 16.

3 Revised Statutes, chap, in, sees. 1-6, and Revised Code, chap.
107, sees. 1-6.
6

82 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [398

As to the prices of slaves it has been impossible to pro-
cure any trustworthy evidence. It is enough to call atten-
tion to the fact that the opening of the cotton industry with
the greater demand for slaves in the Gulf States continued
to advance the prices. Slavery became more profitable, and
North Carolina found it fixed in her life more than was
formerly expected. It has already been pointed out how
slavery extended itself at this period into the western
counties with the probable reason that this region raised
slaves for the Southern markets. It was the ever acting law
of economic rent applied to slaveholding. As the price
of the product increased, territory that was formerly below
the point of diminishing returns was now taken within the
area of cultivation.

The Regulation of the Slave's Life.- — -Next to the loss of
liberty the worst evil connected with slavery was the fact
that it left the welfare of the slave to the accidental temper
of the master. If the latter were humane and intelligent
the slave fared well. If he were otherwise the slave fared
poorly. A correspondent has called to my attention the
fact that a master's treatment of his slaves corresponded
relatively to his treatment of his children: good father,
good master; careless or cruel father, careless or cruel mas-
ter. There were all kinds of masters as there are all kinds
of fathers. Some undoubtedly were cruel ; some undoubt-
edly were wisely humane; many were neither the one nor
the other, but gave their slaves such care as custom
demanded, just as many men clothe and train their chil-
dren without really having any opinions of their own about
the matter.

Of the slave-owners there were the holders of large slave
herds and the holders of few slaves. Of the former there was
the cultured class of planters and the more ordinary class
of wealthy farmers about which I have already spoken.
The gentleman planter type was not so numerous in North
Carolina as elsewhere in the South. Such masters were
often absentee landlords, though this was not general in

399] Industrial and Social Relations of Slavery. 83

the State. Here their relation to the slaves was patriarchal.
As a class they were careful of the slaves' health and morals,
and philanthropic students of the theories of good master-
ship. The wealthy farmers rarely lived away from their
estates. They were usually religious. They were thrifty and
honest. Their sons worked in the fields along with the
slaves, sometimes leading the plow gang, and sometimes
swinging a cradle in the harvest. Their wives superintended
the making of the slave clothing, the cooking of the slave
dinners, and the nursing of the slave patients. Here the
slave fared best, and this class was strong in North Carolina.
It extended all over the State, and was extensively found
in the West. The lot of the slave who belonged to the owner
of few slaves might be bad — and was usually not good. He
was frequently overworked or underfed. The straitened
condition of his master, often not an enlightened man, was
responsible for this.

Next to the master the overseer was the most important
personage. If the master were absent his powers were
great. He was usually a white man, but rarely a slave.
Often a man owned several plantations, on each of which
he would place an overseer, and over all of which he would
keep continual oversight. Overseers were of two classes.
Those on large plantations must be men of intelligence and
men who could take care of slaves as property. They com-
manded good salaries, often getting $100 a month. On the
smaller plantations inferior men were employed, and the
slaves there were not so well cared for. Here an overseer
was well paid at from $200 to $400 a year. What an over-
seer should do properly to fulfill his office may be seen in
the statement of a master in De Bozv's Magazine in 1856.1
In managing negroes, says the writer, the first aim of the
overseer should be to obey the instructions of the master
in respect to them ; the second to satisfy them that he is
doing so. He should always allow the slave easy appeal to

'Vol. 21, p. 277.

84 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [400

the master, and not to do so must be due to bad temper,
false dignity, or the notion that the slave has no rights. If
a slave makes a false complaint he should be punished for
it, and the privilege of complaining should not extend to mat-
ters affecting the overseer's character, for a negro may not
testify against a white man. Some overseers declared that
no negroes should complain of them, and that if they did,
they (the overseers) would whip them in spite of the masters.
"This," exclaimed the writer, "is simply brutal and no man
of spirit will permit it." Still it is bad policy not to punish
a slave without the consent of the master. An overseer
should be kind to the slaves, speaking in a low tone, but
firmly. Negroes should not be fretted at, for it injured their
capacity for work, and when practiced on the young had
been known to lessen their value. Fretting also injured the
overseer. "The habit of swearing at or before negroes an
overseer should never indulge in. If the negro is not
allowed to swear because it is disrespectful to the over-
seer, the latter should not swear because it is disrespectful
to his Maker. Besides, it shocks some pious negroes and
sets a bad example to them all." The overseer should visit
the cabins and promote cleanliness there, see that clothes
and shoes are repaired, and on Sunday he should require all
the slaves to appear in clean clothes. He should rather
encourage their taste for finery than ridicule it. He should
consult with the old men about the work — some of them
were very intelligent. He should be disposed to share their
labor. "Nothing more reconciles a negro to his work than
the overseer sharing it with him. Let him go with them
in heat, rain and cold. If they shuck corn at night let him
be with them." Another writer in the same magazine1
declared that no one should try to manage slaves who had
not firmness, fearlessness and self-control. Punishment
should not be cruel. "If ever any of my negroes are cruelly
and inhumanely treated, bruised, maimed, or otherwise

lVol. 21, pp. 617-620.

401] Industrial and Social Relations of Slavery. 85

injured," the overseer was dismissed. Each place was to
keep enough milch cows to furnish miik for the slaves. The
overseer must care for the sick, especially for the pregnant
women. Nurses should be provided for the sick, and
mothers of young children should not be assigned full tasks.
These regulations were prepared by two successful farmers
who did not live in North Carolina yet they are standards for
slavery as a whole, and bring to us vividly the office of the
overseer. Possibly they were never enforced entirely. Cer-
tainly they could not have been always enforced, but there
is no doubt that the spirit of them was present on many
plantations. It was this spirit and its practical realization
in many ways which gave some foundation to the claim
that the master provided better for the physical wants of
the slaves than the freed negro provides for himself in the
days since the war. The claim is to-day debatable, but it is
necessary to remember that physical wants are not the chief
thing in life. i : ';

I have been able to get the following account of slave
life on a rice plantation near Wilmington, N. C. My
informant is a son of the* gentleman who owned the place
for some years before the war, and in his young manhood
he was overseer on the farm. He is now a prosperous physi-
cian, and I have every reason to believe that his informa-
tion is trustworthy. He says : "There were about one
hundred slaves on the plantation. They were called at dawn
and went to the fields under the care of drivers at sunrise.
Two meals were served each day, one at 9 a. m. and one
at 1 or 2 p. m. The daily allowance of food was one quart
of meal, which was given from March 1 till October 1, one-
half a pound of meat, and one pint of molasses a week for
each adult. Sweet potatoes were given from October to
March instead of meal, and peas were allowed in planting
time. There was a regular allowance of tobacco. The
meals were prepared by the cooks and sent to the field ready
cooked. Milk was furnished at the cook's place. The
tasks were light, and most of them were finished by 2 p. m.

86 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [402

After they were done the slaves might do what they liked.
They usually slept or went fishing-. Among themselves the
slaves were immoral, but, generally speaking, there were
no illicit relations between them and the white men. The
white boys were sometimes intimate with the housemaids.
The slaves went to Sunday School, and the owners of this
and the adjoining farms paid a Methodist preacher to
preach to them once a month." But my informant saw but
small results in the field hands. The negroes were con-
tented and happy among themselves, if let alone by out-
side influences. The owner always counted on their stealing
and took no notice of small offenses. They were not
allowed to go- off the plantation, except by special permis-
sion. They were not allowed to buy whiskey, but occa-
sionally the master would give it to them, and it was a race
trait that all of them, men, women and children, liked it.
Under the care of his owner the slave's health was good,
much better than it is now. Slave mothers frequently
neglected their children, while for the children of the whites
they manifested great affection. This last point is often
corroborated. Said another gentleman : "I have often seen
the slave women come from the fields to* the house of the old
woman who took care of the small children during the day,
take their babies in their arms, nurse them, and put them
down without the least show of affection."

"Negro slavery," continued the gentleman whose state-
ments I was just quoting, "was profitable in producing rice,
cotton and turpentine. One good hand could thus make
in rice from $300 to $400 a year above his expenses, and in
turpentine he could make as much as $1000 a year. On the
farm in question $10,000 a year was cleared in bank from
the rice crop. When masters made no profit it was because
the negroes were not properly cared for. Few of the old
slaveholders had runaway negroes. These negroes usually
afflicted people who had recently begun to have slaves, par-
ticularly Northern men who had married and settled in the
South. These people did not understand the negro, and

403] Industrial and Social Relations of Slavery. 87

expected too much from him. A man who was cruel to his
negroes was not highly respected in the community by the
best people. An evidence of the solicitude of the good mas-
ters for their slaves was the difficulty which the authorities
experienced in getting slaves hired to them to' construct forti-
fications at the outbreak of the war. Masters would not trust
their slaves in the hands of the officers. Among the promi-
nent characteristics of the negro," concludes my informant,
"were no gratitude, no resentment and a deep love of home."
By the side of this statement I am fortunately able to place
the account of slave life on the plantation of a well-to-do
farmer of the central part of the State. The farmer was a
well-known Baptist preacher, and the account is from his
son, who is now a respected minister in the same church.
The locality was in the area of cotton production, and on
the farm were from forty to fifty slaves. The narrator says :

I never saw or knew [my father] to whip [a slave] save sometime
to correct a child for some evil, and then the whipping was light. He
never overworked them, for I was for a number of years foreman of
eight or ten plows. They started to work when I started; when I
rested they rested; when I stopped at evening they stopped; when I
got a holiday they got one. They ate what I ate, though at different
tables. Never a day's ration was issued to any of them. They were
well housed and were allowed to use all the firewood they needed
from the same yard from which the white family got its own supply.
They were well shod and clothed, wearing the same kind of goods I
used on the farm — all home-made. In winter all the slaves, from
the youngest to the oldest, wore woollens. My father retained two
of the best physicians in the county to give them any needed atten-
tion, the same as his family had. He gave each year to each slave
large enough to work a "patch of ground" and the time to work it, in
order that each might have some money of his own to spend as he
chose. The breeding women he was always careful should never
be worked too hard or in any way strained. When any of the slave
children were very sick they were brought into the house of the
white family and there attended as one of the white children. He
always provided for them to go to church on Sunday, allowing them
to use the farm teams when necessary. They were invited to family
prayers in the room of my parents. He often urged his children to
read the Bible to them in their own houses, for each slave family had

88 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [404

a separate home, which, in the main, was more comfortable than
three-fourths of the colored people now have, or perhaps nine-tenths
of them. One of his old slaves told me recently1 that he has never
been as happy or well provided for since he has been free as he
was while a slave. Much more I could say, but this is perhaps
enough. I state the above on my honor as a Christian minister.
P. S. — He never allowed his sons to whip any of the field hands.

In a further communication the same gentleman says of
slavery as an institution :

It never paid my father, only by the increase of his slaves. His
land was poor and this may have been the reason why he never made
any money by it only as above stated. He never kept any account
of debtor and creditor in running his farm. I was very well acquainted
over the county in ante belluin days and knew of but one or two par-
ties who failed to clothe well and treat well their slaves. Those par-
ties, like some of this day, never had a good set of harness, or good
stock or farm tools. In all my section of the county I knew of no
whites who did not own some land and have their own homes. I
knew but one free negro, a woman, and she lived with my father.
She was a housemaid and worked for her victuals and clothes.

The difference between the conditions of slaves in North
and South Carolina is illustrated graphically in the follow-
ing statement of a negro whom Mr. Olmsted met in South
Carolina about 1855. 2 The negro was free, and with his
son had come from Rockingham County, N. C, to peddle
out two wagon loads of tobacco in eastern South Carolina.
Said the old man in the course of the conversation :

"Fac' is, master, 'pears like wite folks doan ginerally like niggars
in dis country; dey doan ginerally talk so to niggars like as do in my
country; de niggars ain't so happy heah; 'pears like the wite folks is
kind o' different, somehow."

"Well, I've been thinking myself the niggers did not look so well
here as they did in North Carolina and Virginia; they are not so well
clothed, and they don't appear so bright as they do there."

"Well, massa," was the answer, "Sundays dey is mighty well
clothed, dis country; 'pears like dere ain't nobody looks better Sun-
days dan dey do. But, Lord ! working days, seems like dey had no

1 This narrative was sent me in 1896.

2 "Journey to the Seaboard Slave States," pp. 389-393.

405] Industrial and Social Relations of Slavery. 89

close dey could keep on 'em at all, master. Dey is almost naked
wen dey's at work, some un 'em. Why, master, up in our country
de wite folks, why some un 'em has ten or twelve; dey doan hev no
real big plantations like dey has heah, but some un 'em has ten or
twelve niggars, maybe, and dey juss lives and talks along wid 'em.
If dey gits a niggar and he doan behave himself, dey won't keep him;
dey juss tell him, sar, he must look up anudder master, and if he doan
find himself one, I tell 'ou, wen the trader cum along, dey sell him
and he totes him away. Dey always sell off all de bad niggars out
of our country; dat's de way all de bad niggar and all dem no-account
niggar keep a comin' down heah; dat's de way on't, master."

To this, which is offered only for what it is worth, add the
statement of Mr. Olmsted himself: "So far as I have
observed," he says, "slaves show themselves worthy of trust
most where their masters are most considerate and liberal
to them. Far more so, for instance, on the small farms in
North Carolina than on the plantations of Virginia and
South Carolina."1

Here we have three pictures, more or less complete, of
slave life ( i ) on a fertile farm in the East, under conditions
of extensive farming, (2) on a large farm in the central part
of the State, and (3) on the small farms of the western part
of the State. I must believe that each picture is given fairly,
so far as it goes. All show that slavery in North Carolina
was not so harsh as elsewhere. To this conclusion I may
add the positive evidence of Mr. Olmsted. He says : "The
aspect of North Carolina with regard to slavery is, in some
respects, less lamentable than that of Virginia. There is not
only less bigotry upon the subject and more freedom of
conversation, but I saw here, in the institution more of the
patriarchal than in any other State. The slave more
frequently appears as a family servant — a member of his
master's family, interested with him in the fortune, good or
bad. This is the result of less concentration of wealth in
families or individuals * * * Slavery thus loses much
of its inhumanity. It is still questionable, however, if, as

1 " Journey to the Seaboard Slave States," p. 447.

90 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [406

the subject race approaches civilization, the dominant race
is not proportionately detained in its progress."1

I am able also to publish the following from a gentleman
of great intelligence and humanity, who was intimately
connected by birth and association with the most prominent
people of the State. He says :

I did not like the institution of slavery, but I wish you to know :
(i) That while the laws were severe the natural amiability of the
people tempered the administration of them. I never whipped a
grown up slave in my life, nor did my father, nor brothers; and such
families were the rule and not the exception. Nor did I ever witness
any of the scenes of barbarity so much spoken of. Although a large
slaveholder, and raised among slaveholders, I never saw a grown
person punished in my life. By grown person I mean fifteen and
sixteen years old and upwards. The separation of husband and wife,
parent and young child, were not common. My family never did it,
nor did any of the families known to me, and I am sure that the
great majority of families in North Carolina would not allow it.

(2) To balance the cases of barbarity I wish you to remember that
the wives and other dependents of slaves were protected by the
owners from brutality on the part of their slave-husbands, etc. The
awful, horrible brutality of drunken husbands and fathers as seen in
England, and the cities of the North was not allowed in the South.

(3) You should not attribute to slaves the fine feelings of whites.
They had recently been savages. Separation of children from
parents, etc., was not to them what it is to whites. But there was in
practice no more separation than in New England families, whose
children as a rule scatter over the whole face of the earth. (4) The
sum of misery was no greater among them practically than among
the laboring classes in free countries. You may not believe all this,
but I hope that it will be within your plan to mention that slave-
owners claim this.

On the subject of mulattoes the same correspondent writes:
The number of mulattoes must not be held to prove correspond-
ing licentiousness on the part of the whites. Many of them were
descended from Indians and many were descended from mulattoes
lawfully married. * * * The mulattoes were employed in towns
and were hence more observed. I have seen great plantations with
not one of them — all black.

If I were defending a side in the never ended controversy
about the treatment of slaves by their masters, it would only

1 "Journey to the Seaboard Slave States," p. 367.

407] Industrial and Social Relations of Slavery. 91

be necessary to point out here that the essence of the misery
of slavery in the South and elsewhere was not physical
suffering, however frequently or infrequently that may have
occurred, but the mental and spiritual wretchedness that
follow a loss of liberty. If you deny the rights of man to
the negro slaves you cut the heart out of the anti-slavery
argument. By the side of the above testimony I shall place
some statements from an unpublished book1 of Dr. Eli W.
Caruthers, of Greensboro, N. C, well known as the author of
some valuable volumes relating to the history of the State.
For events he claimed to know about he was the best kind of
authority. Speaking of beating slaves cruelly, he said: "I
have known a number [of instances] myself in which
nobody in the neighborhood had any doubt that the death
of the slave was caused by the severity of his treatment, but
no attempt was made to punish the cruel perpetrators of the
deeds."2 The conjugal and parental instincts in the slaves
were lessened on account of the frequent breaking of family
ties by masters. "I have known some instances," said he,
"in which [the slave family] have been permitted to live on
in great harmony and affection to an advanced age, but
such instances, so far as my observations have gone, have
been 'like angels' visits, few and far between.' Generally, in
a few weeks at most, they have been separated, sold off
under the hammer like other stock and borne away to a
returnless distance."3 An evil result of this condition of
affairs was that the negroes did not regard marriage as
strictly as they ought. They married carelessly and
separated easily. The result was much licentiousness. A
few Christian owners did what they could to prevent the
separation of their married slaves, but after their death, if
not before, the slaves were sold for debt or to satisfy less
scrupulous heirs.4 In his own congregation was an excel-

J" American Slavery and the Immediate Duty of Slaveholders."
See the author's "Anti-Slavery Leaders," p. 56.
2 Ibid., p. 282. 3 Ibid., p. 299. iIbid., p. 307.

92 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [408

lent man and wife, both slaves, who were very fond of one
another and of their children. Their master died in debt.
Their eldest daughter was sold to a speculator, and other
children were also sold. The honest parents were heart-
broken and succumbed under their sorrow. "I could fill
a volume with similar instances," exclaimed the indignant
writer.1

From an intelligent gentleman, who was a large planter
in the eastern part of the State, I have the following :

Slaves were generally fed three times a day; but I knew several
men who fed only twice a day. I practised medicine on many plan-
tations and never found negroes that were so badly fed that it inter-
fered with my treatment. A few people stinted their children and
their slaves also. Usually the slave fared as well as the child,
relatively speaking. If any difference was made it was in favor of
the slave, who was property. I knew a few people who treated slaves
badly. Such masters were brutal by nature. The morality of the
negro was greater then than now. One fault, however, was the
putting of more than one family into one room. This was not
unusual on plantations. The profit to the employer of the labor of
the slave was perhaps greater than that of the negro freeman to-day.
The negro pays in a region where the ground has to be stirred steadily;
but he does not pay in a grass or grain country. He has not enough
of the faculty of direction for the latter. The negro does not want
or need free circulation of air in his living quarters. As a rule he
sleeps in badly ventilated apartments and seems to suffer no ill effects.
This is a conclusion from my experience as a physician. They
always sleep with their heads covered up. Nearly all like the taste
of whiskey.

From the same source I am able to give an incident,
piteous as it is, but which from the trustworthy and direct
source from which it comes to me I am not able to doubt.
It illustrates most touchingly the hardships which came
from breaking the Africans into slavery. About the begin-
ning of this century when the large Collins plantation on
Lake Phelps, Washington County, was being cleared a num-
ber of negroes just from Africa were put on the work. One

1 "American Slavery and the Immediate Duty of Slaveholders."
See the author's "Anti-Slavery Leaders," pp. 308 and 310.

409] Industrial and Social Relations of Slavery. 93

of the features of the improvement was the digging of a
canal. Many of the Africans succumbed under this work.
When they were disabled they would be left by the bank of
the canal, and the next morning the returning gang would
find them dead. They were kept at night in cabins on the
shore of the lake. At night they would begin to sing their
native songs, and in a short while would become so wrought
up that, utterly oblivious to the danger involved, they would
grasp their bundles of personal effects, swing them on their
shoulders, and setting their faces towards Africa, would
march down into the water singing as they marched till
recalled to their senses only by the drowning of some of
the party. The owners lost a number of them in this way,
and finally had to stop the evening singing. This incident
was related to my informant by the gentleman who was
overseer on this plantation when the incident occurred.

CHAPTER V.

THE TRIUMPH OF THE PRO-SLAVERY

SENTIMENT.

Slave Conspiracies. — The possibility of slave insurrections
was a source of the greatest solicitude to the Southern
whites. This was heightened about the close of the last
century by the Haytien outbreak and by the Nat Turner
attempt in 183 1. Probably the slaves as a body were more
rebellious a century ago, when many of them were fresh
from African freedom, and probably the whites as time
passed knew better how to keep the slave from rebellion.
Certain it is that after the early decades of the nineteenth
century there were no attempts at conspiracy among the
North Carolina negroes.

After the reported conspiracy in Beaufort County, just
before the Revolution, no further trouble is reported till
1802. In that year the extreme northeastern part of the
State was thrown into paroxysms of terror by reports of a
slave insurrection. It is difficult to say just what was the
extent oi the danger there. The insurrection was at first
reported to have gone through the counties of Camden,
Currituck, Pasquotank, Perquimons, Chowan, Hertford,
Martin, Bertie, Beaufort and Washington. At some places
the slaves were reported to have done great havoc, though
no definite acts of outrage were mentioned. Eighteen
negroes were reported to have been executed and a large
number to have been arrested. After awhile it was realized
that "various extravagant and unfounded reports," as the
Raleigh Register1 put it, had been circulated. On July 27,

'June 1, 2.2 and 29, 1802.
94

411] The Triumph of the Pro-Slavery Sentiment. 95

1802, this paper published a full story of the affair by a
reliable witness. It appears that in May of this year a report
came to be circulated that the negroes were about to revolt.
All those who were strongly suspected were arrested.
Excitement ran high, and mob violence was averted with
difficulty. The negroes were at length frightened into con-
fession. They admitted that June 10 had been set for the
beginning of a general insurrection, and that they were
threatened with death if they revealed it, or if they did not
join it. On the night of the tenth they were to form into
groups of seven or eight, fire the houses of the whites, kill
the white males over six years old, kill the women, black
and white, except the young and handsome white women,
who were to be kept for wives, and the young negro women,
who were to be kept for waitresses. After finishing in the
country they were to go to Plymouth, N. C, where they
expected reinforcements, and where the work of destruction
was to be continued. A few arms were deposited in the
swamps, and they expected to get others. They had been
told by their leaders that the rising would cover the whole
country. The leaders were obstinate, but after much whip-
ping they confessed to the conspiracy. Two of them were
executed, and the others were whipped and sent to their
homes. How a whole State might be terrified by such
reports as were then in the air is seen by the fact that false
alarms were given in Halifax and Franklin Counties, and in
the former a negro was tried and convicted, but the com-
munity soon recovered from its shock, and both whites and
blacks joined to petition the Governor to pardon him.1

In 1805 an outbreak of a similar kind was reported in
Wayne County, about which a correspondent wrote to the
Register2 as follows : "We have been engaged in this county
in the trying of negroes for poisoning the whites ever since
Monday last. One suffered death at the stake (was burnt

1 Raleigh Register, August 10, 17 and 24, li
''■Ibid., July 23 and August 13, 1805.

96 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [412

alive) on Saturday last, for poisoning her master, mistress
and two others. Two more are under sentence of death, and
are to be hanged on next Wednesday." Thirteen, it was
said, were in. prison, but some of them had been brought
from Sampson and Johnston Counties. The accused con-
fessed that the plan was to kill the chief white men, and to
keep the others in slavery. Later advices stated that one
more negro was executed besides the two mentioned, and
others had lesser punishments, as whipping, pillorying,
transporting and cropping the ears. In neither of these
outbreaks, it will be noticed, is there mention of Northern
emissaries. Whatever plan there was among the negroes
was probably due either to their own suggestion or to some
negro who came in from the West Indies. Either source
was not improbable. There must have been then, and per-
haps always, a large number of stronger minded slaves who
resented their situation. Of this class was one, "Yellow
Jack," who was advertised in 1812 as a runaway, who had
been overheard to say that "all should be free, and that he
saw no reason why the sweat of his brow should be
expended in supporting the extravagance and idleness of
any man," or words to that effect.1

In 1822 there was a slave rising in Charleston, S. C, in
which Denmark Vesey figured a^ leader. It had no effect
on the slaves of North Carolina, much to the relief of the
whites there.2 Eut in 1821 there had been trouble of some
kind in Jones County. The militia was called out, and in
1823 the Assembly allowed its claim for services. The
Nat Turner insurrection of 1831 aroused great feeling in the
State, and this was chiefly responsible for the state of terror
that possessed the adjacent counties immediately thereafter,
when news was circulated of a similar conspiracy in Samp-
son and Duplin. The terror spread as far as Wake, and
even Raleigh was put into a state of defense, even the old

1 Raleigh Register, June 5, 1812.

2 Ibid., August 20, and September 6, 13 and 1822.

413] The Triumph of the Pro-Slavery Sentiment. 97

men past the militia age volunteering for service. Johnston
County called on Raleigh for ammunition and received a
supply. The report stated that seventeen families had been
murdered by the slaves. When it was reported in Hills-
borough that Raleigh was in imminent danger the former
place at once raised a military company and sent it to the
latter. On careful investigation the reports were found to
have been much exaggerated. It seems that a free negro
had revealed a concerted plan in Duplin, Sampson, New
Hanover, Wayne and Lenoir Counties for the negroes to
rise on October 4, 183 1, march to Wilmington, where they
expected to get arms and recruits. Whatever plan there
was, no whites were harmed. Twelve alleged leaders were
taken and shot, and three others were hanged in Duplin,
and the people were restored to confidence. In Wilming-
ton the excitement had been painful. At one time it was
reported that the infuriated blacks had reached a point two
miles from the city. The whole available population was
put under arms.1 When men were so carried away by the
prevailing fear as to credit such reports as the latter it
was not unlikely that some of their judgments were wrong.
I have it on the authority of the son of the man who was at
that time sheriff of Sampson County that the negroes exe-
cuted for this crime there were innocent, and that he had
often heard his father say as much. This was the last
attempted slave insurrection, so far as I have been able to
learn, in North Carolina. It is singular that we find no
more periods of terror from reported slave insurrections
after the triumph of the pro-slavery element. It would be
interesting to know whether or not these frights were of
political origin.

The Growth of the Pro-Slavery Sentiment, — Intimately
connected with the reported slave conspiracies was the
growth of a stronger pro-slavery sentiment. Each period of
excitement tended to weaken the arms of those who hoped

Raleigh Register, October 15 and 21, 1831.

98 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [414

for final emancipation. It has been said that the Nat Turner
insurrection and the active campaigns of Garrison and his
associates turned the South into pro-slavery advocates.
The statement is but partly true. The process of change in
sentiment had begun some time before, and these events
only hastened its culmination.

There was for some years before 1831 a considerable pro-
slavery sentiment which made its presence felt in the Legis-
lature. It was strongest in the East where there were more
slaves. Opposed to it were the western counties. As they
became more and more slaveholding, the non-slaveholding
element leaving largely for the Western States, the pro-
slavery faction was strengthened. They were, moreover,
a party of action and they drew young men. Those who
hoped for emancipation had no plan of action. They only
awaited for some door to be opened to effect their hopes.
They could not approve of the procedure of the abolition-
ists in the North. They realized that latent public opinion
in the South was such that it would be folly to argue against
slavery on the grounds of the rights of man. The half-
hearted opposition they could make had no chance against
the fervid arguments of the convinced and enthusiastic
supporters of slavery.

The steps by which the pro-slavery minority was con-
verted into a majority are obvious. In 1818 Mr. Mears, of
New Hanover, introduced a bill to prohibit the teaching
of slaves to read and write. It was lost on the second read-
ing.1 A year later a similar bill was unanimously rejected.2
In 1825 a bill to prevent the escape of slaves by assuming
the privileges of free negroes was indefinitely postponed.
In 1825 free negroes were required to have license from the
county justices to live in Raleigh. Licenses were given to
those only who could prove good character.3 In the same
year the Governor in his annual message referred sarcasti-

1 Raleigh Register, December 18, 1818.

2 Ibid., December 10, 1819. 3 Ibid., February 18, 1825.

i

415] The Triumph of the Pro-Slavery Sentiment. 99

cally to resolutions of the Ohio Legislature in regard to
abolition in the Southern States. He appreciated the inter-
est of the non-slaveholders, but hoped they would "shortly
learn and practice what has familiarly been termed the
Eleventh Commandment, 'Let every one attend to his own
concerns.' "x In the same year a bill to restrain improper
conversation between mulattoes and free negroes on the
subject of freedom was lost in committee.2 Another bill to
prevent the education of slaves, a bill to prevent free negroes
from migrating to North Carolina and a bill to forbid
emancipation societies were introduced but lost, the second
by a vote as close as 56 to 47.3 Evidently the pro-slavery
men were in earnest.4

The matter became graver in 1826. In his message the
Governor referred to a petition from the Vermont Legislature
to the North Carolina government praying for the abolition
of slavery. The Northern agitation, he thought, "demanded
from us a sleepless vigilance." He recommended revision
of the laws relating to the militia, to the patrol, and to the
immigration of free negroes.5 A warm debate followed in
the Senate. Mr. Speight, of Greene, was particularly bel-
ligerent. "As a North Carolinian he felt that he was being
imposed upon, and that there was an improper attempt to
dictate to the Southern States in what manner they should
govern their own property ; and before he would tamely
acquiesce in any infringements of his rights in this par-

1 Raleigh Register, November 29, 1825.

2 Ibid., December 6, 1825.

3 Ibid., December 30, 1825, and January 3, 1826.

* It is curious to read the estimate of the North Carolina Manumission
Society in 1825, as to the sentiment of the people of the State on the ques-
tion of emancipation. They said that -fa of the people wanted immediate
emancipation, fa wanted gradual emancipation, -fa wanted emigra-
tion, fa were totally indifferent, f§ were ready to support schemes of
emancipation, fa opposed emancipation because impracticable, and
fa were bitterly against it. See Weeks: "Southern Quakers and
Slavery," p. 241.

5 Raleigh Register, December 29, 1826.

100 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [416

ticular he would destroy the constitution, law and every-
thing most dear to him." He favored referring the matter
to a committee. Mr. Forney, of Lincoln, counseled modera-
tion. "There was," he said, "a good deal of sensibility
excited whenever this subject was mentioned, and a dispo-
sition was felt to take umbrage when no offense was
intended." The Senate referred the matter to a committee,
but with what result does not appear.1 In the Assembly of
1827-28 there were several bills in regard to minor features
of the slave controversy, but none passed. In 1828-29 a
bill was introduced to prohibit the education of slaves and
on the recommendation of the Judiciary Committee it was
rejected. Both here and in the following year other bills
were introduced to restrict the activity of slaves, but they
failed to pass. It was only when the Governor sent in to
the Assembly a copy of an inflammatory circular found in
North Carolina and in other States, that passion rose to
summer heat again. Slavery, said the Governor in his
message, was a fixity, and "it would be criminal in the
Legislature to attempt to avoid any responsibility growing
out of this relation." It was known that free negroes had
helped to circulate such literature as this, and it was recom-
mended that they be required to give bond not to do so in the
future. The Governor's note of warning was heard. The
first bill introduced was to regulate the patrol. A committee
of the House of Commons was instructed to inquire into
the expediency of preventing the education of slaves, and a
number of other restrictive bills and resolutions followed
quickly.2

The incendiary publication referred to was by one Walker,
of Boston.3 I presume this was David Walker, the third
edition of whose "Appeal in Four Articles" had just been
issued. This appeal, said he, was made to rescue the negro
from wretchedness in consequence of slavery, ignorance, reli-

1 Raleigh Register, January 2, 1827.

3 Ibid., November 18 and 25, and December 2, 1830.

s Ibid., December 9, 1830.

417] The Triumph of the Pro-Slavery Sentiment. 101

gious teachers and the colonization plan. It was written by
a negro and was intended to incite negroes to progress.
They were urged not to be content with the position of
menials, but to educate their children. The habit of the
whites of teaching negro children in Sunday Schools was
denounced, evidently because it tended to make the negroes
contented with slavery. Garrison reprinted much of this
pamphlet in one of the early numbers of the Liberator.1 It
was not openly and violently incendiary, to be sure, but it
aimed to make the negro discontented with his lot, and
falling into the hands of slaves might well be construed to
lead to any kind of a stroke against their shackles. To the
North Carolina Legislaure it was a most serious matter.
The Senate went into secret session on it, the second secret
session in the history of the State. The bill to prevent slaves
being taught to read and write was taken up and went
through the Senate on its second reading without a divi-
sion. Mr. Robert P. Dick, of Guilford, protested
in the name of many of his constituents who con-
ceived that it was their duty to teach the slaves to read the
Bible.2 The bill was finally enacted. The tide had turned.
The pro-slavery minority that had often tried to pass this
bill had at last been able to get it through. This faction
was not only supreme in the Assembly, but it soon became
supreme in society at large. It took its case into the realm
of literature. Arguments sociological, arguments ethno-
logical, arguments psychological, arguments biblical, and
goodness knows how many others were hurled at the slave.
The very nature of the controversy engendered passion. The
abolitionist considered slavery a crime against the slaves.
His saying so reflected on the moral integrity of the masters.
Specifications of the criminality were enumerated. The
masters became angrier. The passions once kindled might
be relied on to keep themselves burning. It would have

xThe Liberator, April 23, 1831.

2 Raleigh Register, December 9, 1830.

102 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [418

taken admirable self-control for either side to have stopped
or to have turned aside the flood. Said Mr. Julius Rock-
well: "It is no credit to the civilization of the nineteenth
century that slavery could not have been abolished without
that horrid war." It was slavery itself that defeated the
humaner forces of civilization. Had slavery not been
slavery the minds of men might have been calmer in its
presence, but then there had been no need of abolition.

After the triumph of 1830 the dominant faction was more
determined than ever to protect slavery. The Governor in
his message in 1831 referred to the discontent among the
slaves, and recommended the organization at the expense
of the State of a reliable county militia to be held ready to
march at a moment's notice. His recommendation was not
adopted. Neither were a number of bills brought in to
restrict the action of slaves.

In 1835 a joint committee on incendiary literature, of
which Thomas G. Polk was chairman, reported in favor of
a permanent policy in regard to such literature. This the
State could undoubtedly do and "no other State, and no
other portion of a people of any other State can claim to
interfere in the matter, either by authority, advice, or persua-
sion; and such an attempt, from whatever quarter it may
come, must ever be met by us with distrust and repelled with
indignation. * * * Whatever institution or state of
society we think proper to establish or to. permit is by no
other State to be disturbed or questioned. We enter not
into the inquiry whether such institution be deemed by
another State just or expedient. It is sufficient that we think
proper to allow it. * * * We do full justice to the
general sentiments and feelings of our fellow-citizens in
other States, and are fully aware that the attempts to> injure
us are made by a small minority — composed probably of
many misguided and some wicked men, and that these
attempts meet with no favor, but on the other hand with
marked disapprobation from a large majority of the com-
munities in which they are made. Still it must be recollected

419] The Triumph of the Pro-Slavery Sentiment. 103

that from the nature of the means employed the danger to
us is the same." "We asked not assistance," continued the
committee, "to put down insurrectionary movements among
our slaves, for should such occur we are fully able to put
them down ourselves. But we ask that our slaves and our-
selves may be relieved from external interference. Left to
themselves, we believe our slaves, as a laboring class, are as
little dangerous to society as any in the world. But we do
ask, and think we have a right to demand, that others do
not teach them evil of which they do not think themselves."
The report closed as follows : "Though we feel the greatest
attachment for the Union, and would do all in our power
to strengthen and perpetuate it, yet we are not ready to
surrender those very rights and blessings which that Union
was formed to protect; and should the means now adopted
prove ineffectual in stopping the progress of these attacks
on our peace and happiness, we would invoke the aid of the
other slaveholding States that there may be concert of action
in taking such steps as the occasion may demand."1 With
this report were some resolutions in the same spirit, and
these were passed by a large majority.

By the side of this I should like to place a resolution which
the Raleigh Register, June 4, 1836, said had just been
adopted by the New England Anti-Slavery Society. It read :

Resolved, That regarding a surrender of the right of free discus-
sion upon the altar of Southern slavery as involving on our part the
commission of moral suicide, treachery to the cause of civil liberty,
of humility and guilt before high Heaven, we hereby pledge ourselves
to one another — to the oppressor and the oppressed — to our country
and our God — that, undeterred by threats or persecution at common
law, v/hether in the messages of the governors, the pages of our
theological reviews, or the reports of legislative committees — come
what may, gag law or lynch law, we will never cease to work
for its exercise — full, free, and undiminished — until the last fetter
shall be broken and slavery and prejudice shall be buried in one com-
mon grave.

2 Raleigh Register, January 5, 1836.

104 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [420

Alas ! that was a good way to bury slavery, but neither the
resolutions of the North Carolina Assembly nor those of
the New England Society were calculated to diminish preju-
dice.

The change in public opinion is well illustrated by the
course of the Raleigh Register. Its editor, Joseph Gales, had
left England in 1794 on account of a certain connection with
a violent pamphlet of a French republican flavor. His love
of liberty made him steadily opposed to slavery. He was a
follower of Jefferson and later on a Whig. He certainly did
not represent the general sentiment on the slavery question,
but even the opinions of his paper were not proof against
the pro-slavery impulse of public thought. In 1818 the
Register described slavery as "a Upas tree of most frightful
dimensions and most poisonous qualities." In 1825, when
another paper declared that the Register was "very little in
unison" with the opinions of the great body of slaveholders,
Mr. Gales replied :

We consider slavery an evil, a great evil, but one imposed on us
without our consent, and therefore necessary, though we cannot
believe irremediable, hopeless and perpetual. On the simple ques-
tion: "Ought slavery to exist" we presume but few persons would
answer in the affirmative, and still fewer would be found bold enough
to advocate the practice as being right in itself or to justify it, except
on the broad plea of necessity. That it would conduce equally to the
interest and happiness of the slaveholding States to get rid of this
part of our population few will deny. It is a dead weight which
mars all enterprise and clogs the wheels of the political machine.
None can doubt that if North Carolina could give the whole of
her colored population for one-half the number of whites she would
be among the foremost in the race of active improvements now run-
ning by most of the free States. We hope the time will come,
though it is probably far distant, when a better order of things will
prevail in this respect.1

In 1830 the Register had begun to change its tone. It
pronounced "highly seditious" the anti-slavery articles then

1 Raleigh Register, September 20, 1825.

421] The Triumph of the Pro-Slavery Sentiment. 105

appearing in the Greensboro Patriot, of which William
Swaim was the editor. In 1835 the Register declared itself
as follows :

Until recently we were disposed to regard the movements of the
abolitionists with indifference and contempt ; but it is folly to shut
our eyes to the fact that they are rapidly augmenting in numbers, and
that their zeal and exertion are increasing in even greater ratio. By
a late circular, signed by Arthur Tappan, Lewis Tappan, the Rev. Dr.
Cox, etc., it seems that they are determined to raise $30,000 during
the present year to be devoted to printing and circulating gratuitously
inflammatory papers calculated to do extensive mischief.1

Four weeks later the same paper, on the authority of
Lewis Tappan, said that the abolitionists had printed 175,000
abolition circulars, of which 1000 had been destroyed in
Charleston. "The rest," said Tappan, "are accomplishing
the designs intended throughout the United States. We
will persevere, come life or death. If any fall by the hand
of violence, others will continue the blessed work." By this
time the Register was out and out a pro-slavery organ. This
change in sentiment in a most conservative paper — the edi-
torial management of which remained continually in the same
family — father and son — during this entire period, must
have been indicative of a much stronger popular change.2

Co-existent with the facts just mentioned there was a
strong political side to this change. The Whigs were, for
most of the period before the Civil War, more opposed to
slavery than the Democrats. They now found themselves
uncomfortably placed between two fires. Abolitionists
charged them with favoring slaveholders. Pro-slavery peo-
ple charged them with a leaning towards Northern abolition
doctrines. Each charge was denied. In each there was some

'Raleigh Register, October 1, 1835.

"Sometime before his death in 1842 Joseph Gales went to live in
Washington City, leaving the editorial management of the paper in
the hands of his son. I can find no date for this, but it was hardly
so early as 1835. At that time the paper announced at its head that
it was published by "Gales and Son."

106 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [422

show of truth. Whiggery was already being dragged into
the maelstrom of sectionalism, which was destined to- destroy
it. In North Carolina it did not dare to oppose slavery. At
the time about which I have been speaking, another issue
overshadowed all others. It was the question of apportion-
ment of seats in the Assembly. The Constitution provided
that each county should have equal representation. The
western counties were larger than many eastern counties and
demanded an apportionment of seats according to popula-
tion. The struggle was won by the West, and the desired
reform was accomplished by the constitutional convention
of 1835. x This put a new complexion on State politics for a
few years ; but as soon as this issue was forgotten — and it
was not long in doing so — the two parties were drawn into
discussion of the slavery question. It was in the campaign of
1840 that the matter first became prominent. The Standard,
a Democratic paper at Raleigh, called the Whigs "abolition-
ists." The Register, which was the leading Whig organ,
charged Van Buren with favoring negro equality. The
controversy became warm. The Democrats attacked Mr.
Morehead, Whig candidate for Governor, because he had
prepared a report against the bill to prevent the instruction
of slaves. The Whigs replied that Mr. Haywood, the Demo-
cratic candidate, had done the same thing. The Whig candi-
date was looked upon with suspicion, because he was from
Guilford County, where anti-slavery ideas were abundant.
The Whigs replied by charging that Mr. Saunders, a Demo-
cratic ex-Congressman, had presented to Congress a petition
from the Manumission Society of Guilford County. When
the Whigs finally won in 1840 the Register announced the
victory under the headlines : Whiggery Victorious ! The
Black Flag of Abolition Laid Low !

After 1840 the controversy slept till 1846, when the Wil-
mot Proviso was introduced. It now became violent.

]See the author's "Suffrage in North Carolina," Report of the
American Historical Association, 1895.

423] The Triumph of the Pro-Slavery Sentiment. 107

The Democrats had the Whigs on the defensive. The latter
were forced to repudiate the action of the New England
Whigs, who had just endorsed the proviso in a convention
at Springfield, Mass. The result was satisfactory. The
Whigs were still strong, and carried the State by what was
then a substantial majority of 7000. In 1848 the controversy
for equal suffrage began, the Democrats favoring it and the
Whigs opposing. It ran strong, but the feeling on the
slavery question was not allayed. The two parties vied with
one another in denouncing abolition.

In the storm of feeling which preceded the compromise
measures of 1850, North Carolina was not untouched. The
strongly conservative feeling of the State was brought into
play, and the resolutions which were introduced into the Leg-
islature were milder than they would have been in some
other Southern States. On January 16, 1849, the
Assembly resolved all but unanimously, that to forbid slav-
ery in the District of Columbia or in the territories would
be a "grave injustice and wrong" and contrary to the spirit
of the Constitution, and that they were willing to stand by
the Missouri Compromise. An amendment to these resolu-
tions was offered by the House of Commons and concurred
in by the Senate, pledging the State more strongly than
ever to the Union and repudiating "whatever may suggest
even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned. This
amendment was introduced into the House by Edward Stan-
ley, of Beaufort County,1 who was a Union man of the
strongest sort.

In the session of 1850-51 the same matter came up again.
A joint committee was appointed to act for the two Houses.
A report was prepared and submitted. It was in favor of
accepting the Compromise of 1850, but sounded a note of
warning in regard to the Fugitive Slave Law. There were
many resolutions on this subject before the Assembly. One
of them expressed, perhaps, pretty thoroughly the feeling

1 Journal of the Assembly of 1848-49, pp. 717 and 725.

108 Slavery in the State of North Carolina. [424

of most of the members. It ran : "Resolved, That we will
have the Fugitive Slave Law or fight." Many amendments
were offered to the resolutions of the committee, and an
intricate debate was just beginning when the matter sud-
denly dropped out of the journal of the Assembly, leaving us
to guess the cause. Perhaps it was because the Assembly was
brought to realize the futility of bringing on a discussion
which would create feeling and endanger the Union, all to
accomplish no definite end. The compromise laws had
then been passed in Congress, and as yet the Fugitive Slave
Law had not been tried. It was evidently in the interest of
good' sense to say nothing about the slavery question.

The last decade before the war was quiet enough so far
as the political relation of slavery was concerned. There was,
as the crisis approached, a considerable amount of sectional
recrimination, but it does not belong to the history of slavery,
but rather to the larger history of the great sectional strug-
gle. In the meantime, and, indeed, for a decade and a half
previously, there had been no legislation of importance which
bore on slavery. The status of the slaves had been fixed to
the satisfaction of the masters by the legislation which came
closely before or after 1830. This intermediate period was
marked by profound quiet on the part of the slaves. The
negroes were prostrate, restrained at every point by law. So
completely were they subjected that they gave no trouble
during the war that followed. During this war it was
not found necessary to amend the law controlling the con-
duct of slaves at any vital point. This quietude of the slaves
has been attributed to their good nature. It ought to be
attributed to their lack of esprit du corps, their lack of
organization, and their fear of the whites. They did not
remain quiet because they loved slavery. They had small op-
portunity for rebellion. The counties were closely defended
by home guards, embodied from the old men and the youths
and in each State till the end of the war there were easily
accessible bodies of troops which would bave crushed with
fearful promptitude an attempt at insurrection. No revolt

425] The Triumph of the Pro-Slavery Sentiment. 109

that the negro could have made would have stood a week.
That the negroes were willing enough to have their liberty,
even at the expense of the lives of their masters, is shown
by the readiness with which they enlisted into regiments in
the Union Army, and by the desperate courage with which,
raw as they were, they frequently bore themselves in battle
when under the leadership of competent white officers.

AUTHORITIES.

With few exceptions, I have been thrown back on Quellen,
and of this class of material the pieces have been varied and
multitudinous- Slavery is unannalled so far as the slaves
themselves are concerned. I have been forced to pick up
information here and there as it is found in the documents
and other literature of the white man. At best I can hope
for but little more than that this, and other works of mine
on slavery in North Carolina, may serve for a point around
which many more facts not now in the range of my knowl-
edge may be gathered, till at last the subject is known
through and through.

My chief sources of information have been laws and legal
opinions. Of these are :

Laws of North Carolina, 1790.

Laws of North Carolina, 1821.

Revised Statutes of North Carolina, 1837.

Revised Code of North Carolina, 1835.

Journals of the North Carolina Assembly.

Reports of the cases in the North Carolina Supreme
Courts.

I have found much information in the newspapers of the
day, particularly the Raleigh Register, and the North Caro-
lina Standard.

Other materials of a more miscellaneous nature are:

Caruthers, E. W. : American Slavery and the Immediate
Duty of Slaveholders, an unpublished manuscript now in
possession of the library of Greensboro Female College
(N. C.)

Wightman : Life of Bishop Capers.

Drew : Life of Dr. Thomas Coke.

Hawkins : Memoir of Lunsford Lane.
110

427] Authorities. Ill

Biggs : History of the Kehuckee Association.

Purefoy : History of the Sandy Creek Association.

Weeks : Southern Quakers and Slavery.

Hoss : Sketch of the Life of Elihu Embree. Publications
of Vanderbilt Historical Society, No. 2, 1897.

Smith: History of Education in North Carolina.

Olmsted : Journey in the Seaboard Slave States.

Du Bois: The Suppression of the Slave Trade.

North Carolina Colonial Records, Vol. IX.

De Bow's Review.

Weaver : The North Carolina Manumission Society. The
Historical Papers of the Trinity College (N. C.) Historical
Society.

Chreitzberger : Early Methodism in Wilmington, N. C.
The first annual publication of the Historical Society of the
North Carolina Conference of the M. E. Church South, 1897.

Gaston, Wm. : Address at Commencement at the Univer-
sity of North Carolina, 1832.

David Dodge [O. W. Blacknall] : Free Negoes of North
Carolina. The Atlantic Monthly, January, 1886.

Minutes of the Conference of the Methodist Episcopal
Church.

Disciplines of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Minutes of the Chowan Baptist Association.

Minutes of the North Carolina Baptist Convention.

McCill : American Slavery as Viewed and Acted on by the
Presbyterian Church in America.

"Presbyterianism and Slavery." Official document pub-
lished for the use of the General Assembly of the Presby-
terian Church at Pittsburg, 1836.

Journal of the North Carolina Episcopal Convention — not
complete.

Bassett, J. S. : Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of
North Carolina. Hopkins Studies in History and Politics,
1896. Anti-Slavery Leaders of North Carolina, Ibid., 1897.
Suffrage in the State of North Carolina. Publication of the
American Historical Association, 1895.

THE JOHNS HOPKINS PRESS

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The Johns Hopkins Press,

Baltimore, Md.

North Carolina State Library
*: Raleigh

GC 326.97Sb U3i»si

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Bassett, John Spencer, 1867-1928,
Slavery in the state of North Carolina

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